Star Wars: Rebel Rising(29)
The sculpture was made of flowers. Jyn had never seen something so beautiful—and so pointless. The flowers would surely die after a few standard weeks, and the entire thing would wilt. For now, though, it was breathtaking, a show of extravagance. The base of the sculpture was made with greenery, thick waxy leaves woven together with ivy, and that gave way to fiery red blossoms with orange centers, crowned with bright golden-yellow sakoola blossoms. The image the flowers created was a bird on fire.
“It’s lovely, isn’t is?” a man near Jyn said when he saw her leaning back to see the full sculpture.
She had to admit it was. “What kind of bird is it?” she asked. She only then realized she hadn’t seen any birds in the garden by the pool; the closest thing to flight that she’d seen was the Rayeths gliding over water.
“It’s a starbird,” the man said. “Your mother didn’t tell you the legend?”
He thinks I’m Inusagian, Jyn thought, remembering her robes. “My mother died,” she said, looking down demurely.
A flash of pity crossed the man’s face. “It’s an old tale anyway,” he said. “People forget the old tales. But the starbird lives inside the heart of every star in the galaxy. When a star goes out, the bird dies a fiery death, its wings spanning millions of kilometers, stretching out over the dark abyss of space. The starbird turns to stardust.”
Jyn stiffened.
“All that’s left is the heart. And the dust spreads out over the galaxy, then forms again. The man cupped his hands, as if he could hold the stardust. “And the starbird is reborn.” He opened his palms, and Jyn half expected a mythical bird to soar into the air.
But there was nothing.
“Disrespectful is what it is,” said an older woman who had been listening to them, frowning.
“Disrespectful?” the man asked, but there was an icy edge to his voice.
The woman sniffed at him, turning away. She moved over to a group of Imperial officers gathered near a platform.
“Thanks for the story,” Jyn said, moving away from the man. She didn’t want anyone to really notice her, and if the man wasn’t liked, it wouldn’t help her to stick near him.
“Friends, members of the Inusagian court,” a voice echoed, amplified by the speaker droids that had buzzed above the crowd, hovering over everyone’s heads. All eyes turned to the dais installed under the flowery sculpture.
The chieftess looked much smaller than she had in the holo. Her eyes were sunken and her skin ashen. Her hair hung limply down her back. The only thing that looked regal about her was the silvery-white robes she wore, the bands of cloth wrapped around her torso in a way that reminded Jyn of the Rayeths wrapping their arms around themselves as they approached the palace.
“We welcome you all as we celebrate the beautiful festival of sakoola blossoms,” the chieftess said. She glanced behind her at the statue made of flowers.
“Yes, thank you,” someone said before the chieftess could continue. An Imperial officer stepped forward, and the microphone shifted toward him. “We are pleased to share this festive day with an event equally joyous: the installation of Inusagi’s first Imperial governor!” He waited for polite applause and kept waiting until there were enough cheers to satisfy him. “Thank you, thank you,” he continued as the welcome abated. “Governor Cor Tophervin is a personal friend of our great Emperor Palpatine, and it is an honor to dedicate his service to the Empire and the planet of Inusagi today. Cor, please step forward,” the officer said, sweeping his arm out.
Jyn made her way to the back of the crowd. It was clear what this little party was really about—a show of power and prestige from the Empire. It seemed almost like a mockery to turn a festival in honor of the planet’s beauty into an excuse to showcase an Imperial governor.
Most of the crowd edged closer to the stage, but Jyn unobtrusively stepped farther back. It was time to go.
A handful of stormtroopers lined the bottom of the stairs in the sunken ballroom. Before they could stop her, Jyn made a motion to show that she was feeling sick, and one stepped back so she could dart up the stairs and toward the hallway that led out of the palace. She paused before leaving, her robes brushing through the trail of sakoola petals, the pillars surrounding the ballroom casting long, reaching shadows.
There was movement there.
Jyn squinted into the darkness.
Ten people moved forward, silently. Among them were a bald man with a bushy beard, an old woman no longer hunchbacked, a blunt man with big, angry eyes. Maia. And Saw.
Each held a dual canister FC-1 flechette launcher. Jyn had studied weapons with Saw long enough to know exactly what such a weapon would do. Her eyes widened as her mind ran over the statistics she knew by heart. Each flechette launcher would hold six anti-personnel canisters. Each canister held hundreds of tiny, razor-sharp flechettes made of durasteel that, when fired, would slice through the crowd, penetrating up to ten centimeters, regardless of whether they hit a stormtrooper’s armor or a soft Inusagian gown. Flechettes were deck sweepers, capable of decimating a crowd in minutes.
Jyn couldn’t move as she watched the partisans take their positions around the pillars. Ten people. Sixty shots. Thousands of tiny razors flying through the air.
Her eyes flew to the chieftess as she stepped forward and the newly installed Imperial governor finished his speech.