Lords of the Sith

  “What else is there?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Another ship, Faylin! Anything nearby? Focus.”

  “No, wait…yes. Stay put.”

  Faylin drove the pallet on, pushing through the tide of the crowd. The computer continued its inexorable countdown—eight minutes. Faylin moved the pallet toward the side of the corridor and stopped the cart.

  “Hang on,” she said. “Just hang on. The pallet won’t fit through this hatch.”

  “What’s the ship?” Isval asked.

  “A ship’s boat or shuttle or something. There’s no one here.”

  The crew assigned to it could have been killed in the droid attack on the Perilous.

  “You’ll have to get out,” Faylin said. “I’ll let you know when.”

  Faylin circled the pallet, and Isval imagined her eyeing the Imperials hurrying past, waiting for the right moment. The computer announced seven minutes.

  “Now,” Faylin said, and heaved one of the dead Imperials off the pallet. Isval pushed Grolt off her and let him fall to the floor while Eshgo, Drim, and Crost threw open their compartments and clambered out of the pallet. Faylin helped Drim to his feet while Isval grabbed Crost under the armpits and pulled him up.

  —

  Vader saw them: Twi’leks crawling out of a tool pallet driven by a human in a stolen Imperial uniform.

  He had them.

  He activated his lightsaber, embraced his anger, and drew deeply on the Force.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Isval shoved her team toward the narrow hatch that led to the docked ship—an escort boat, she saw. Eshgo would be able to fly it.

  “Go! Go!”

  Drim stumbled and fell. Isval helped him up, and as she did she glanced back the way they’d come. She could not halt a gasp. Far down the corridor, she saw Vader leap down from a walkway ten meters above the deck. He hit the ground in a crouch, the red line of what could only be his lightsaber clutched in his fist.

  “Come on, Isval!” Faylin said, tugging her shirt.

  “That’s him,” Isval said, her voice robotic.

  Faylin pulled her shirt. “Him who? It’s time to go, Isval!”

  But Isval thought of Pok, and had no intention of leaving. She’d gotten her team out. Her work was done.

  “Get aboard and get it fired up,” she said to Faylin. “Go now.”

  “Isval…,” Eshgo said.

  “Get it fired up!” she said, and drew her blasters.

  Vader was forty meters from her. He stood up straight, towering over the crew near him. He was looking right at her, his lightsaber held at his side, and she could feel the weight of his regard pressing against her like a punch. He exploded into motion, moving toward her at preternatural speed, his strides devouring the deck space between them. Crew scrambled out of the way at his approach, his dark form knifing through them.

  She raised her blasters and took aim, shooting as fast as she could pull the triggers, scribing the air between them with lines of red energy. Vader didn’t slow his sprint and his lightsaber was a blur as he came on, deflecting her shots in all directions. A few came back at her. One hit the pallet and sent tools skittering along the deck. Another scorched the bulkhead beside her, but still she fired.

  The crew in the corridor panicked, scrambling in all directions. An officer got in Vader’s way, slowing his approach for a moment, and Vader tossed him aside with his free hand as if the man weighed no more than a child.

  “Isval!” Eshgo said from behind her.

  Vader was twenty meters and closing.

  She was shouting, firing, but her shots could not get past the line of his lightsaber. She didn’t understand how it was possible, until her own words came back to her: Vader was not a man.

  But she refused to stop, she couldn’t.

  “For Pok!” she shouted with each shot. “For Pok!”

  Six minutes said the computer. Vader closed to ten meters. She fired again and again and again, screaming. Blaster shots from somewhere else in the corridor pinged off the bulkhead—stormtroopers, maybe.

  Strong arms wrapped her from behind, picked her up off the deck—Eshgo.

  “Stop!” she yelled, trying to twist her body in his grasp so she could keep firing. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m saving your life!” he said, and carried her through the docking port door as blasterfire slammed into the jambs.

  The moment he got her on the other side, he set her down, punched a button, and the huge hatch slid closed. She turned, teeth gritted, and caught a last glimpse of Vader before the door blocked her view—still rushing toward them, blade in hand, cape flowing out behind him.

  She reached for the control panel, thinking to hit the button to reopen the hatch, but Eshgo shot the panel with a blaster.

  She whirled on him, her fists clenched around her blasters, standing on her tiptoes to put her nose to his.

  “You had no right—”

  “You saw what I saw! He’s not going down to blasterfire, Isval! He’d have cut you in half!”

  As if to make the point, the energized blade of Vader’s lightsaber burst through the hatch, just missing Eshgo’s abdomen. They bounded back out of reach as the heat from the weapon started to redden the metal.

  They stared at each other for a moment, breathing into each other’s faces.

  “You’re right,” she said, slumping. “I know you’re right. But don’t disobey an order again. Come on.”

  They piled into the escort boat. Drim already had the engines online. He gave way to Eshgo, who took the pilot’s seat while Isval strapped into the copilot’s chair.

  “Who or what was that?” Faylin said.

  “Vader,” Isval said. “Vader.”

  Faylin cursed and Isval could only agree.

  “Disengaging docking clamp,” Eshgo said, and the boat floated free of the doomed Star Destroyer. “We’re away. And there’s Ryloth.”

  As the ship swung around, Isval looked out the viewport. Ryloth loomed large against the dark of space. The Perilous had covered an enormous amount of distance while they’d been aboard. The Star Destroyer would burn up overlooking the planet the Empire cruelly oppressed. Isval thought it appropriate.

  Hundreds of escape pods and a mix of other ships, including a few dozen V-wings, dotted space around the Perilous. Some would land on the nearest moon. Some would land on Ryloth. And some would not get clear in time. The blast radius of the Perilous would be huge, given the detonation’s provenance in the hyperdrive.

  “Not too far,” she said to Eshgo.

  “What? We have to get far—”

  “Do as I say,” she said, and he didn’t dare disobey her again.

  She needed to get Cham on the comm.

  —

  Vader had lost the saboteurs.

  The computer announced six minutes remaining.

  Vader deactivated his lightsaber, drew on the Force, and hurried for the Emperor’s shuttle in the forward landing bay. The corridors were emptying rapidly as the last of the crew evacuated. By the time he reached the shuttle bay, he was moving through a ghost ship.

  Fires still burned here and there in the bay. The Emperor’s shuttle sat on its pad, the engines already primed, and Vader sprinted up the gangplank to find his Master calm and seated in the passenger area of the ship, flanked by the red-robed and armored members of the Royal Guard. His Master touched a button on his chair.

  “You may launch,” the Emperor said to the pilot, and the shuttle immediately lifted off. “Sit down, old friend,” he said to Vader.

  “Senator Taa?” Vader asked.

  The Emperor made a dismissive gesture. “Oh, I’m sure he’s waddled himself to safety somehow. Rats always find their way off sinking ships.”

  —

  Isval bit down to activate the comm she had with Cham.

  “Cham, do you copy?”

  “I do!”

  “We’re clear,” she said.


  “You’re clear?” he echoed, and the relief in his voice touched her. “I’d been afraid to reach out to you even when you got within range. Didn’t want to distract you. I show the Perilous midway between the inner moon and the planet. What’s your status?”

  “Charges are hot. She’s going down, Cham.”

  “She’s going down,” Cham said, presumably repeating it not for her but for others in the room.

  “I think the decoy teams are lost, and we have a problem.”

  His voice lowered. “What problem?”

  She eyed the sea of smaller ships scattered across space, as thick as an asteroid field, as Eshgo put some distance between them and the Perilous. She held up a hand to stop Eshgo from going any farther. She didn’t want to get too distant. He sighed to show his disapproval, but did as she commanded.

  “They realized what we’d done and sounded an evacuation.”

  Cham was silent for a long moment. Finally he sighed and said, “Let’s not call that a problem. An evac isn’t ideal, but we can still say we took down a Star Destroyer and killed hundreds of Imperials in the process. That’s a big blow.”

  She turned her head to the side, away from Eshgo, and whispered into the comm. “Big, but not big enough. It’s not enough, Cham.”

  “It is, Isval. It has to be. We did what we—”

  “It’s not over! It can’t be. The whole thing is pointless if we don’t kill Vader and the Emperor. You wanted to start a fire and spread the Empire thin trying to put it out. This won’t do it. They’ll just lie, say something went wrong with the ship and it went down, but that the Emperor and Vader got off without harm. You want to kindle a blaze? Show the Empire to be vulnerable? Then we have to kill Vader and the Emperor.”

  She imagined him shaking his head. “I’ve only got two dozen droid tri-fighters left, Isval, and their brain overhauls are still in progress. They haven’t been tested in a combat situation. Kallon said they—”

  “You’ve got us, too, Cham. We’re out here. Right now.”

  She looked out on the escaping ships. Time was slipping away.

  “Cham, there’s only one or two ships we’ll need to destroy. The tri-fighters would act as a distraction to occupy the V-wings up here. We don’t need them combat ready.” She looked at the control panel, but the layout was foreign to her. To Eshgo, she asked, “Where are the weapons controls? Does this thing even have weapons?”

  “It does,” Eshgo said. “Here.”

  She nodded, said to Cham, “We just need to find them. If we can locate them, I can kill them. Cham, you hear me?”

  “What kind of ship are you in?”

  “One with blasters. An escort boat. Get Belkor to tell us the ship ID of the Emperor and Vader. They’ll have their own special ident.”

  She watched more pods shoot out from the Perilous’s sides, and a few more exited the front landing bay. The Star Destroyer had to be almost empty. There couldn’t be more than two or three minutes before the charges blew.

  “Cham?”

  “All right, Isval. I’m going to launch the tri-fighters. I’ll get back to you on the ship ident. Get ready.”

  She leaned back in her chair, relieved. “Get the weapons hot,” she said to Eshgo. “As soon as those tri-fighters get up here, it’s time to hunt.”

  Meanwhile she familiarized herself with the boat’s instrumentation.

  —

  “To do what?” Kallon asked, in response to Cham’s order to launch the tri-fighters. His lekku twitched with irritation. He detested putting anything in the field without first testing it thoroughly. “Their brains are still experimental. They’ll be worthless in a fight.”

  “I know, but do it anyway. Just have them engage anything that’s not Isval’s ship.”

  Kallon sniffed. “And what’s her ship?”

  “It’s an escort boat.”

  “That’s it?” Kallon said. “An escort boat? No ident? How am I going to keep them from shooting at her?”

  “By giving them the specs for an Imperial escort boat and telling them to shoot at everything else,” Cham snapped. “The fighters are a distraction, and they’re not going to last long anyway. I don’t have time for this, Kallon. Just get them in the air. Now. Then we abandon this base for Ryloth.”

  With that, he left Kallon muttering, turned, and stepped out of the command center. He activated his encrypted comm to Belkor.

  The Imperial answered quickly and irritably. “What?”

  “The ship’s going down, but an evacuation order went out—”

  “I know,” Belkor snapped. “We already got word and—”

  “I need an ident for whatever ship Vader and the Emperor normally fly, and I need it right now.”

  Belkor held the line in silence for a few beats. Cham imagined him chewing on the request and balking at the taste.

  “If those two don’t die,” Cham said, “this all falls down. I need that ident and I need it now.”

  “I’ll be in contact,” Belkor said, and disconnected.

  Cham didn’t know if he would be in contact. He thought Belkor might have just lost his nerve. He cursed as he watched the tri-fighters rise on their lifters and streak out of the landing bay. He activated his comm with Isval.

  “Tri-fighters are launched. I don’t know if I’m going to get the idents. See if you can see anything on your own.”

  —

  Belkor stood in the midst of the busy communications center and tried to think through his course. Events were outrunning him. The air felt too close, the walls too near. He was breathing too hard. He needed room to move.

  And he needed more than just Vader and the Emperor dead. Their deaths wouldn’t be enough, not for him.

  Before he knew what he was doing, he opened a comlink to Mors.

  “What is it, Colonel?” Mors said, her voice tight with stress.

  The fact that Mors was referring to him by rank instead of name did not bode well.

  “Checking on your status, ma’am. Have you departed the moon?”

  “Leaving now.”

  “Very good, ma’am. We’ll ask the pilot for the ship’s ident and prepare everything for your arrival.”

  He seemed to be operating outside himself, watching himself do things. He went to a comp station and retrieved the idents for the Emperor’s shuttle and Mors’s transport. He copied them into the encrypted comm he used to communicate with Cham, then stepped out of the center and raised the Twi’lek.

  “You have them?” Cham said.

  “I’m sending you two.”

  “Two?” Cham said.

  “They’re on one of them. Or maybe one of them is on each. That’s the best I can do. Destroy them both to be sure.”

  He transmitted the idents. He was sweating.

  “I’ve got them,” Cham said. “Don’t launch any more V-wings until this is done.”

  “I can delay only so long,” Belkor said, failing to keep exasperation out of his tone. “Get this done, Twi’lek.”

  The Twi’lek disconnected without a reply and Belkor stood there, sweat gluing his uniform to his skin. If Mors joined Vader and the Emperor in death, Belkor could lay everything at the Moff’s feet. That was his best play, his only play.

  He looked through the glass at the hive of activity in the comm center and inhaled to steady himself. He straightened his uniform, smoothed his hair, and returned to his post.

  His fate would be determined in the next few minutes.

  —

  Mors hustled onto her shuttle and Breehld, her personal pilot, got them airborne right away. The moon fell away beneath her, the blanket of the jungle’s verdure coating the surface in green.

  “Status,” she said into her wrist comlink as she settled into the luxurious, cushioned passenger compartment of her shuttle.

  Ryloth Imperial Control informed her that the Perilous, aflame and heavily damaged, with hundreds or thousands dead, was now between the planet and the orbit of the nearest moon, Mors
’s moon. The Star Destroyer was closer to Ryloth than she was.

  “When she’s in planetary orbit, I want all resources marshaled to assist with repairs and the wounded.”

  “Of course, ma’am.”

  The blue sky gave way to black space. She looked out a viewport as the shuttle left the moon in its wake and Ryloth grew larger.

  She disliked Ryloth, its dirtiness, its dry air and howling winds, its endemic poverty. The food was bad, the people were angry, and she’d never seen a point in enduring either when she could, instead, live a life of comfort on the jungle moon and leave the dirty work to Belkor.

  But that had been a mistake. Belkor had failed. Mors would have to do something about the young colonel. The thought displeased her, not because she liked Belkor, but because it would mean work for her, and she disliked work. She was too old for work.

  —

  The Perilous hung in the empty space about halfway between Ryloth and the orbit of its nearest moon when the first explosion of the chain reaction started. The ship’s aft section burped several fireballs. Chunks and bits of the Perilous’s superstructure went spinning off into space, intermixing with the escape pods and V-wings.

  “And here we go,” Isval said softly.

  “Deflectors at full,” Eshgo said, his voice tense. “I’m not sure we’re clear.”

  “Stay put,” Isval said, scanning the hundreds of ships and pods that dotted space.

  More explosions rocked the rear of the Star Destroyer, and tongues of flame hundreds of meters long lit up the darkness, licking the black.

  “We should be farther out,” Eshgo said, his voice tight.

  Isval knew, but she also knew she needed them close enough for cleanup work afterward. She could not imagine that Vader and the Emperor hadn’t escaped the ship.

  The explosions spread rapidly then, one after another. The aft section blossomed into a single, huge ball of fire, vaporizing the engines, though inertia kept the Star Destroyer moving for Ryloth. Debris and flames flew in all directions. The blasts raced along the length of the ship, one section after another vanishing behind an orange curtain.