The Dark Rival

  Ry-Gaul didn’t say a word. He let Ferus work it out.

  “But that would mean that the Empire knew we would take the ship. And the only way they would know that would be...” Ferus felt his breath catch. “If Flame was an Imperial spy.”

  “It is a possibility we should not overlook,” Ry-Gaul said. “She was the one who set us up with the ships. It almost seemed too easy, if you think about it.”

  Ferus felt a surprising rage gather from the soles of his boots to the top of his head. He was tired of maybes and uncertainty. He was furious that they were at this crossroads. They were at the mercy of one person who was holding up the completion of an intricate plan. He felt the anger grow, and this time he didn’t turn away from it. The Sith Holocron whispered something to him that made sense.

  Let your anger go. It’s time. When you are thwarted, use your anger.

  “There’s one way to find out who it is,” Ferus said. “Line them all up. Threaten to kill them all if one of them doesn’t confess to being the spy.”

  Ry-Gaul looked startled. Ferus realized that the thought in his head had come out. It was one of those thoughts he didn’t understand, the ones that didn’t seem to come from him. Ry-Gaul focused on him, really examining him in a way that made Ferus furious. How could he not know that anger was a weapon like any other?

  Because the Jedi are weak.

  That’s why we destroyed them so easily.

  They never saw it coming.

  Ferus stalked away. He put his hands on the Holocron. He was finally ready. Here on this uninhabited moon, in the middle of the galaxy, in the middle of uncertainty.

  Hidden behind the ship, he slipped the Sith Holocron out of his tunic and set it in motion. Images came at him, a rush of knowledge that seemed to be absorbed before it was registered. Terrible things, fascinating things, things that made his stomach churn. He didn’t know how long he looked; it felt like hours. He had to wrest himself away. It took all of his strength.

  It had only been seconds.

  He blinked. He had seen too much to process, but he knew he had been changed. He felt the Emperor’s hand on him now.

  Ry-Gaul was suddenly in front of him. “I felt something...the dark side of the Force. Ferus?”

  He gathered himself together. He mustn’t let Ry-Gaul know. He turned to face the older Jedi. He saw the careworn, silver eyes, the stubble of silver hair. Ry-Gaul suddenly looked pathetic to him, not strong.

  “Ferus?” Ry-Gaul narrowed his eyes.

  “The spy is Flame. You’re right.” He had been given a glimpse into dark hearts, and he recognized the breed. Facts clicked in his head, motivations, cunning.

  Ry-Gaul strode forward suddenly and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Forget about the spy. I feel the dark side of the Force. Not from Flame, my friend. You.”

  “Tell me something,” Ferus answered. “What is so wrong with using anger? ‘Feel your anger, let it go,’” he mimicked. “What did that philosophy do for the Jedi? What did it get us but...here?” He waved his arms to take in the bleak, rocky moon, the ships, the evidence of their being hunted, the evidence of their exile.

  Ry-Gaul dropped his hands. “The Jedi made many mistakes. We were...fooled.”

  “Fooled? Children are fooled! The Jedi lost the galaxy!”

  “The galaxy was not ours to lose.”

  “They destroyed us, and we never saw it coming!”

  “Ferus.” Ry-Gaul spoke his name with anguish. “To act with anger as your propulsion is never the way.”

  “It is the only way. It is the only thing we have left!” Ferus took a step backward. “I will not be taken down. I will not be hunted. I’m going to take care of this now.”

  He stalked away. He could feel Ry-Gaul behind him. Close. Too close. Afraid of what he might do.

  He found Flame standing with Solace and Trever, their heads together, discussing their next move.

  “It’s Flame,” Ferus said. Why bother with preliminaries? “She’s the spy.”

  Solace didn’t show her surprise. She looked to Ry-Gaul for confirmation.

  Trever shook his head. “You’re crazy, Ferus. What are you talking about? She arranged this whole thing. She started Moonstrike.”

  “Exactly,” Ferus said. “What better way to cut off the effective resistance movements at the start than by getting them in one place and destroying them?”

  “You don’t have much to say, Flame,” Solace said.

  “I don’t think Ferus would listen,” she said. “I think the accusation is ridiculous, of course. I’ve been fighting with you, shoulder to shoulder. I was shot on Bellassa rescuing Amie Antin.”

  “That’s right, Ferus!” Trever said.

  “Yes, you got a blaster wound during the operation,” Ferus said. “You must have been furious. You didn’t know the full extent of the plan, only that we were going to rescue Amie. It was a perfect way to prove your loyalty to the Eleven. You needed Wil and Amie to commit to Moonstrike, and it was the only way to ensure that they would join.”

  “Tell them about Rosha, Trever,” Flame said. Her voice was steady.

  “She brought us through heavy fire,” Trever said. “She risked her life to save the Roshan delegation. And she put the ship down and offered to go out first, to make sure it was safe. I went with her...”

  “And Imperial fighters appeared and blew up the ship before the Roshans could exit,” Ferus said.

  “That wasn’t her fault! There were no fighters on the sensor screen! And she stayed with me and helped me on Rosha, even while the whole capital city was burning. She found us food, and shelter, and kept us safe. And then she found the resistance and got together with them—” Trever faltered.

  “Yes, she found the resistance, didn’t she?” Ferus encouraged. “She brought them together, maybe even helped set it up. Only it worked a little too well, didn’t it? The Roshans turned out to put up an amazing fight, a fight no one had expected, and Vader didn’t want another Bellassa on his hands. So she called a meeting and told the Empire where it would be—”

  “But she was there, too! We were all caught when they blew up the building! She saved my life,” Trever said desperately. “She pulled me into a crawlspace underneath the floor.”

  “Things go wrong sometimes,” Ferus said. “The order to attack is given a few seconds early. No doubt she’d planned to be out of there before it happened. Leaving you, most likely.”

  “No.” Trever shook his head stubbornly.

  “Trever, don’t you see?” It was all so clear to Ferus now. He knew the way Vader thought. And he had no doubt that Vader was running this operation. “She is always in the midst of the battle but is never killed. She brought them all in and promised them safety and recruited us. All this time, she was drawing us in. How do you think the Empire found out about Thugger’s Alley?”

  “No,” Trever whispered. He shook his head again, more vehemently than before. “She couldn’t have.”

  “That was part of Twilight. The operation we couldn’t figure out. It is one strike against all the most powerful resistance leaders at the same time. He will crush the rebellion before it has a chance to start! And he used Flame to do it.”

  Solace’s comlink signaled, and she stepped away. She listened for a few minutes.

  When she returned, her face was grave. “That was Clive and Astri. They’ve been on Flame’s trail for some time now. Clive suspected her. They’ve discovered her real name. Eve Yarrow. She’s an Imperial agent.”

  Flame’s face darkened. “It’s not true!” Now at last her manner began to crack. “Liars!”

  “What should we do now?” Solace asked quietly.

  Ferus felt a surge of power. The Sith Holocron burned his skin, but he enjoyed the sensation of burning. He felt a darkness around him, a shimmering, beautiful thing.

  “Execute her,” he said.

  “At least we got through to Ferus about Eve,” Clive said.

  “What did Solace say?” As
tri kept her eyes on the nav screen. They had been pulled into a routine check by Imperial vessels and were lined up on a spaceport runway. Imperial starfighters buzzed overhead, making sure no one took off.

  It was a tense situation, but they had prepared for it. At the last spaceport Clive had used Imperial equipment to key in a new ID profile and registry.

  “Who, Lady Chatty? Nothing. She just said, ‘I understand,’ and broke the communication. She was with Ferus and Flame, though, so Flame is caught, no question. The question is, what do we do now?”

  “Vader mentioned the Bespin system,” Astri said. “We could head out there and see what we can find out.”

  “That’s a long way to go just to noodle around,” Clive said. “We don’t have any clear information to go on. We still don’t know what Twilight is.” He watched Astri’s face. He was beginning to be able to read it. “Don’t blame yourself for what happened at the spaceport,” he said. “You couldn’t shoot him. That’s a good thing. And we got away.”

  “It was a failure of nerve,” Astri said. “I could have compromised everything. I had my blaster aimed at him. But I couldn’t fire directly at him.”

  “Maybe we’re not cut out to be spies. Look, we can fight the Empire with everything we have, but we don’t have to turn into them.”

  Astri stared at the nav screen but she was picturing the scene back at the spaceport. The Imperial officer, looking at her. She, pointing her blaster at him. All she could see was his eyes, young and afraid.

  She’d moved the blaster just a couple of millimeters and blasted his computer instead. The officer had sprung back, fumbling for his blaster, and she’d moved forward quickly and placed her blaster against his head. “The next one is for you if you move,” she’d said. She put all her will into the words, but she’d known they were hollow.

  Then Clive had arrived. They’d taken the officer’s blaster and comlink, and had destroyed the rest of the communication equipment. It bought them time. But they knew that the next ship to land would give him access to a comm system.

  “We’re already wanted for stealing the cruiser,” Clive said as they left the planet. “So now we’ll be wanted twice. Destroying an Imperial computer system should get us a couple of years in jail, no question.”

  Astri wished she knew how far she was willing to go to be a resistance fighter. She knew she wasn’t willing to kill. No, Clive was right. She didn’t want to turn into them. She didn’t want to lose sight of who she was.

  She stared at the screen, waiting for their number to be called up and given a release. No ships had taken off in some time. “Something’s wrong,” she said. “The line should be moving faster than this.”

  “Let me check it out,” Clive said. He lowered the ramp and exited the craft, then ambled off toward a knot of spacers talking in a group.

  “What’s going on, mates?” he asked. “Anybody know what the holdup is?”

  A short, pudgy pilot in a greasy flight suit snorted. “You think they tell us anything?”

  “What I don’t get is, they’ve checked ships through that they’re holding on the ground,” another spacer said. “You’d think they’d release them.”

  “Or let us park in the hangar and wait this out in the cantina,” a spindly pilot broke in.

  “I’ll tell you what this is, if you ask me,” the second spacer said. “I’ve seen this before. They’re holding us all here because they’re waiting for some Imperial topper to get here. Mark my words, they want to arrest somebody, but there’s nobody here important enough to do the job.”

  “So we’ve got to broil under these three suns while we wait for some topper?” The pudgy pilot blew out a breath of air in exasperation. “I’ve got a cargo hold full of premium dates from Nantuker that’re spoiling as we’re talking. This is one long blasted twilight of a day, let me tell you.”

  Clive ambled away, not letting his pace reveal his worry. He checked out the Imperial officials at the control office. They certainly didn’t look too busy. They were waiting. In the small cluster of buildings was a detainment center, a fancy word for jail. He hoped he wouldn’t find himself in it.

  He scooted back up the ramp and told Astri the news. “I’m afraid the people they’re waiting to arrest are us,” he said. “We’ve got to think of a plan.”

  “It’s a space station,” Astri said. “We’ve got nowhere to go. And look at all those TIE fighters lined up. We can’t outrun them.”

  An Imperial ship appeared in the sky. It swept down and landed in front of the line of space vehicles.

  “This is not good,” Astri said as a hooded figure emerged. “It’s an Inquisitor.”

  “I’ll place bets that it’s Hydra,” Clive said. “She fits Ferus’s description.”

  “She knows we’re here,” Astri said.

  “There’s only one way out of here,” Clive said. “That’s aboard her ship.”

  “Steal an Inquisitor’s ship?” Astri asked. “How are we going to do that?”

  “Carefully,” Clive replied.

  The spaceport was thrown into a moderate amount of confusion due to the presence of an upper-level official. Officers flocked to the command center, trying to impress her. Low-level functionaries laid low, trying to escape notice. And the spacers, pilots, cargo drivers, and freighter captains were furious that they were being held up this long. They began to complain. Loudly.

  The pilots and passengers were out on the permacrete runways now, milling and discussing the holdup. It was easy for Clive and Astri to thread through the crowd unnoticed, even as a voice over the loudspeaker ordered everyone to return to their vehicles.

  Hydra had put down her craft directly in front of a bulk freighter that was outfitted for passengers. The crowd was confused and angry, and it gave Clive and Astri cover to quickly board Hydra’s ship. She’d left the ramp down in her haste.

  “What’s your plan?” Astri asked, peering out the viewport. Stormtroopers with blaster rifles were beginning to get the crowd under control. Clive and Astri didn’t have much time. “I know you have a plan. I just hope it doesn’t involve taking off with about fifty TIE fighters shooting at us.”

  “We’re going to sail out of here like a free bird.” Clive hurried to the small stateroom. He flung open a small recessed door.

  “You see? Even an Inquisitor needs a change of clothes.” He flung an Inquisitor’s robe toward Astri. “Put this on.”

  She looked at it. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I don’t kid when I’m looking at prison time, kiddo.”

  Astri donned the robe and pulled the hood forward. She was the same height and size as Hydra, and Clive thought she had a good chance of pulling this off.

  “Give me five minutes to get arrested,” he said. “I’ll be wearing a hidden transmitter...let’s hope they don’t find it. Hydra isn’t going to let these officers get credit for the arrest. She’s going to want to interrogate me. She’ll take me into that detainment cell. When I’m alone with her, wait a few minutes and then come into the main office and tell them to let you into the cell.”

  “What if she doesn’t take you into the detainment cell? What if she takes you aboard the ship?”

  “Then we hold her hostage and escape that way.”

  “Great,” Astri muttered. “Just great.”

  Clive started out the ship, then stuck his head back in. “And may the Force be with you,” he said with a quick grin.

  He vaulted out of the ship. Astri pressed close to the viewport. She watched him walk toward the control office as though he didn’t have a care in the world.

  She heard his voice come through the transmitter. He asked when he’d be able to take off. Then she heard boots clicking and Clive saying, “Whoa, mate, no need for that, I’ll just wait for my turn...”

  And a voice, low and clear. “Arrest him.”

  “Arrest him,” Astri said out loud, trying to match that voice.

  Clive narrated his arrest so she
’d know where he was. “Where are you taking me? I haven’t done anything. Hey, everybody flies under a false registry sometimes. My cruiser wasn’t up to inspection, so I...aw, not a detention cell. This is cruel.”

  Astri heard the unmistakable sound of security locks snapping. Then Hydra’s voice again.

  “Who were you with at the Dexus-12 spaceport?”

  “No one. I was alone.”

  “Correction. You were with a woman. What happened to her?”

  “She left me. Women always do.”

  “What were you doing on Niro 11?” Hydra asked.

  “Banking,” Clive answered. “Isn’t that the only thing to do on Niro 11?”

  “If you refuse to answer you’ll encounter more persuasive techniques when you meet Lord Vader.”

  “I did answer, Your Inquistiveness,” Clive said. “Next question?”

  Astri checked her reflection in the durasteel door. She walked down the ramp and headed for the control office. Underneath the cover of the long sleeves of the robe, she crossed her fingers.

  She strode into the control office. The officer at the console looked surprised. “Inquisitor Hydra, I thought you were with the prisoner.”

  “I’m returning there now. Give me the security device for the cell.”

  “That’s against procedure. The prisoner could get it from you.”

  “Correction. I am Head Inquisitor, captain. Nobody gets anything from me.” Astri put out her hand. After a moment’s hesitation, the officer put the security device in it.

  “That will unlock the cell,” the office informed her. “If you need me, there’s a comm unit near the door with an emergency call button.”

  She nodded and turned away.

  She walked through the connecting hallway to the detainment cell door. Outside the door she stopped for a moment. A locked cabinet contained a few blaster rifles, stun cuffs, and a stun net launcher. She coded in the number she saw on the door onto her security device. The cabinet opened. Astri grabbed the stun net launcher. Then she pressed the button to release the locking device of the cell and walked in.