Vader bounded backward, leapt high up on the wall, and hung with one hand from a narrow ledge, his boots planted on the stone. He’d assumed his Master would do the same, but he hadn’t. Instead, his Master stood in the center of a crowd of the creatures, spinning, whirling, slashing, killing. Deez diverted his fire from the wounded queen to the lyleks attacking the Emperor, but the frenetic motion of the combat prevented him from aiming accurately, and his shots bounced off their carapaces in all directions.
The queen recovered enough to survey the scene and her eye fell on Vader, perched as he was on the wall, seemingly vulnerable, and she lurched toward him, shrieking. She pushed through the lyleks around her, her tentacles squirming wildly, grasping for him. Her remaining eye fixed on him and her mouth opened wide in a prolonged hiss.
Below, an explosion of Force lightning shredded a handful of lyleks and left his Master standing in the center of a circle of charred, dead creatures. He made eye contact with Vader, nodding, and Vader knew to hold his position as the queen closed.
His Master raised both hands and sent a storm of Force lightning into the queen, enmeshing her in sizzling blue lines. She screamed and spasmed in agony, her mandibles parting wide to reveal the rows of her teeth as the lightning tore at her carapace and the organs underneath, burning her inside and out.
Vader acted quickly. Drawing on the Force, he leapt off the wall straight at her head. Despite her pain, she managed to snatch him out of midair with a tentacle, seizing him around the waist and squeezing. His armor creaked under the strain and he shouted with pain but, as ever, let the pain draw him deeper into the Force.
She lifted him high and jerked him toward her slashed face, the ruin of her eye, her mouth opened wide to hiss, exactly as he’d anticipated.
“Finish her!” his Master shouted.
He threw his lightsaber at her open mouth, guiding it with the Force, causing it to spin as rapidly as a rotor as it flew into her gullet. She gagged, recoiled, one good eye wide with pain and confusion, as Vader maintained his mental hold on his spinning blade, cutting her apart from the inside out. Desperately, instinctively, she drove the spiked, poisoned tip of another tentacle at his chest.
Enmeshed in the Force, he caught the spike in his gauntleted fist and stopped it before it reached his armor. He grunted with pain, with exertion, the thick, muscular appendage of the giant creature straining against his Force-fueled strength. He was the stronger, and stared into her face as his lightsaber tore through her innards and his Master’s lightning charred her flesh.
She screamed again in a final burst of agony, and the hulking remains of her body collapsed to the floor, taking Vader, clutched now in a limp tentacle, with her. He hit the floor in a crouch along with the bulk of her carcass, shook off the tentacle, and recalled his lightsaber to his hand. The blade cut through her carcass and returned to his hand, slick with fluid.
The remaining lyleks shrieked and chittered, tentacles and legs jerking wildly. Deez continued to blast at them.
Vader met the eyes of his Master, standing five meters away, and both nodded. Immersed in the Force, they set about slaughtering the remaining lyleks. The lines of their lightsabers rose and fell, rose and fell, and the confused, stunned beasts barely defended themselves. Soon the floor was carpeted in carcasses, and Vader and his Master were the only living things standing amid the carnage.
His Master’s cackle filled the silence. Both deactivated their blades.
“Well done, my friend,” the Emperor said.
Back up in the tunnel, Deez used the high-tensile cable integrated into his belt to rappel down the wall. He picked his way through the slaughter, obviously trying and failing to control the expression of awe on his face, until he stood before Vader and the Emperor. He took a knee, his fist to his chest.
“My Emperor.”
“The captain?” Vader asked.
“Killed by one of the creatures, Lord Vader,” Deez said as he stood. “His body is…not recoverable.”
To Vader, the Emperor’s mind seemed to be elsewhere. He may have heard Deez or not; Vader could not tell.
“I think we should leave this place before it starts to stink,” the Emperor said finally. “This is the way to the surface, I’m quite sure.”
Together, Vader, the Emperor, and Deez moved quickly through the tunnels, ever upward, back toward the surface. They stayed alert for lyleks, but the tunnels were empty. The entire nest must have been annihilated.
“The creatures struggled when the queen died. When the head is removed, the body must soon die,” the Emperor commented.
Vader said nothing, merely looked at his Master.
“Do you not see? That’s why we’re hunted, Lord Vader. The rebels hope to cut the head from the Empire.”
“Of course,” Vader said. It was unlike his Master to state something so obvious except with a purpose. “And?”
His Master adorned his face with his usual half smile. “Many things are that way, even some relationships. If the head is removed, the body cannot exist alone. The relationship is complementary, almost symbiotic.”
Vader understood his point then. “Yes, Master.”
The roll of thunder reverberating through the stone told them they were nearing the surface. The tunnel they traversed gradually narrowed until they could move only single-file. Deez led, and Vader came last.
Ahead, Vader saw that the tunnel was blocked. He could hear the sound of dripping water and falling rain from behind the blockage. Deez climbed amid the rubble, trying to peer through it.
“We’re right at the end,” he said. “I can see the outside through a crack in this rockfall. Probably a rockslide caused by the rain. We’ll need to clear it, my lords.”
Vader and the Emperor stepped around Deez, faced the tons of rock and dirt, and both felt deeply into the Force. As one, they raised their hands, summoned their collective power, and loosed a sudden blast that was more powerful than a grenade. Rock and dirt exploded outward, no doubt traveling high into the night sky.
Beyond, they could see the trunks of trees and falling rain.
“It’s clear, Sergeant,” said the Emperor with a smile.
—
Concerned that the lylek carcasses would eventually attract scavengers, maybe gutkurrs again, Goll led Isval and Cham a few kilometers away from the ravine and into the forest. Thunder rumbled; lightning veined the sky. The rain eventually worked its way through the canopy and turned the forest floor sodden. The air smelled of loam.
“The weather is going to make scanning for Vader from the ships even more difficult,” Isval said.
Cham only nodded, preoccupied with endgames and exits. He didn’t see one and he very much wanted to.
“What’s on your mind?” Isval asked.
Cham forced a false smile. “Tomorrow.”
Now it was Isval’s turn to nod and say nothing.
Cham had called a halt here, figuring there was little point in wandering aimlessly through the forest. They’d lost the Emperor’s trail. It would have to be found by air—or not at all. Meanwhile, they’d wait. Isval, of course, tried to pace away her impatience. Goll’s team sat on logs and tended their gear.
“We should keep moving,” Isval said, pausing in front of Cham.
“To where?” Cham asked her.
She grunted and continued pacing.
Cham allowed himself to consider the possibility that Vader and the Emperor were dead, devoured by the lyleks deep underground. He doubted it—but the uncertainty gnawed at him. He was running out of time to bring events to a close. Eventually the Equatorial Communications Hub would get a dish back up and override Kallon’s jamming signal. At that point, a coordinated search and rescue would begin in earnest. He’d have no room to maneuver, then. Too, he figured that word of the destruction of the Perilous had reached Coruscant, and that, at that very moment, Imperial ships and soldiers were being prepped to come to Ryloth, if they weren’t already en route. Once they arrived, t
hey’d try to blockade the whole system, and then…
And then they’d scour it for Cham’s people.
Exits. Endgames.
He had hours, at best, if he wanted to give his people a chance to get clear. He felt the day and events slipping out of his grasp. And he was tired, damn tired.
His comlink with Kallon and Faylin pinged.
“Go,” he said into it.
Isval topped pacing and stared at him, as tense as a drawn bowstring.
“Cham,” Kallon’s voice called over the comm, “I just had an explosion on scan.”
Cham’s heartbeat accelerated. His lekku flicked with excitement. “You’re sure? How far?”
“Five klicks from your location. Precise coordinates incoming.”
“What is it?” Isval asked, having heard only Cham’s half of the conversation. “What is it?”
Cham held up a finger for her to be patient. “Kallon, just note the location. Do not approach on your own. Acknowledge.”
“Not even a little peek?”
“Kallon, if that’s Vader, he took two ships down while he was on the ground, and he survived the attack of a lylek horde. Do not approach. We have to play this just right. Acknowledge.”
“Acknowledged. You want a ride?”
“We can cover five klicks on foot faster than if you come back here to pick us up. Just set down and stay on comm. Faylin, get in the vicinity, but not too close.”
“Got it,” Faylin said.
Cham cut the communication and explained to Isval what he’d heard from Kallon. “Could be something unrelated,” he cautioned, seeing her flush with excitement.
She nodded, her fidgeting stilled by the prospect of action. “But it might be them. It probably is. And we’ve got nothing else. Goll, get your people up. We’re moving.”
Goll and his troops readied their gear and formed up.
“Belkor?” Isval asked Cham.
“Right,” he said to Isval, and raised Belkor on the encrypted comm. “Put yourself down. We have something we’re checking out. Just be ready if I call.”
“Wait, Syndulla, I—”
Cham cut the connection and imagined Belkor shouting at him from the cockpit. But Belkor was unstable, and Cham didn’t trust him not to foul things. The Imperial might make a run at Vader and the Emperor before Cham was ready, or he might compromise their position early. Cham just needed Belkor in reserve with his V-wings, ready for a call.
At this point, Cham regarded Belkor as a hammer. He decided he wouldn’t get the Imperial involved until he had a nail he wanted struck.
“Let’s go,” he said to Goll and Isval. “Quickly, now.”
—
Vader, the Emperor, and Deez walked out of the tunnel and into the forest. Thunder boomed and a hard rain fell, causing the leaves above them to rustle.
“Which direction, my lords?” Deez asked.
Before either of them could answer, a green-skinned Twi’lek girl, perhaps in late adolescence, emerged from the underbrush. She wore a weathered rain parka and had a long-barreled, Clone Wars–era blaster pistol on her hip. Field gear stuck out of her backpack. The end of a carved wooden tube, almost like a musical instrument, stuck out of the pack, too. Seeing Vader and the Emperor and Deez, her big eyes widened and her lekku twitched, but to her credit she didn’t run.
Deez started to level his rifle but Vader grabbed the guard’s arm, halting him. That seemed to put the girl a bit less on edge, though she looked ready to bolt if she needed to. Vader sensed more curiosity in the girl than fear.
“Who are you?” Deez asked.
“Who are you?” the girl responded, her accent so thick that Vader found it hard to understand her at first. “What are you doing out here? Are you lost?”
The girl apparently did not recognize the Emperor or his companions. She must have been from one of the remote settlements that were known to dot Ryloth’s wilderness.
“Come here, girl,” the Emperor said, putting the power of the Force into his command.
Unable to resist, the girl walked out of the tree line until she stood, small and vulnerable, before him.
With preternatural speed the Emperor drew, ignited, and slashed at the girl with his lightsaber, but Vader had sensed his Master’s intent and moved with greater speed, igniting his own blade and intercepting his Master’s blow before it could land.
The girl, under the sway of the Emperor’s power, seemed scarcely to notice the danger. She simply stood there, staring vacantly, her face aglow in the red light of the crossed blades.
The Emperor’s mouth twisted in a snarl, and Vader felt his power gathering.
Behind Vader, Deez raised his rifle and aimed it at Vader’s back, but Vader stretched his free hand back and unleashed a blast of power that lifted the guardsman from his feet and flung him into the trees. Branches cracked audibly under the impact of Deez’s body.
Vader and his Master stared at each other across the sizzling glow of their crossed blades.
“Has it come to this?” his Master said. He sounded calm, almost resigned, but not at all surprised.
The tone surprised Vader. “Forgive me, Master,” he said, and deactivated his blade. “I think the girl can be of use to us.”
“Do you?” the Emperor asked softly.
“There must be a village nearby,” Vader said. “If they have a ship…”
Deez climbed to his feet and staggered out of the brush, groaning. He leveled his blaster rifle uncertainly at Vader, looking to the Emperor for a directive.
His Master’s scowl lingered for a moment before twisting into a half smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He gestured at Deez to stand down, his eyes never leaving Vader’s faceplate.
“I agree. She can be of use to us.”
The Emperor looked at his blade, at Vader, pursed his lips, and deactivated the weapon. To the girl he said, “Is your village nearby?”
The Twi’lek, still under the influence of the Emperor’s power and with an unblinking, faraway look in her eye, nodded. “It’s not far. I was out checking hunting traps and heard a boom. I thought it was a rockslide and came to look. I saw you from the trees.”
“And what did you think when you saw us?” the Emperor asked.
The girl’s brow creased, as if she didn’t understand. “Think? I assumed you were lost, that maybe you’d crashed. Strangers are uncommon out here. You’ll be welcomed at the village, though. It’s custom.”
His Master smiled. “That’s nice to hear. How many of you are there?”
“Thirty-seven,” the girl said. “But Naria’s with child, so it will soon be thirty-eight.”
“Indeed,” said the Emperor. He looked at Vader curiously.
“Master?” Vader asked, but the Emperor ignored him.
“Maybe you have some news of what’s happening in the cities?” the girl asked.
“Maybe we do,” the Emperor said. “Do you have a ship in your village?”
The girl shook her head. “No, no ship. Not even a working communicator. We lost it last year and haven’t been able to get another in trade. But we have food and warmth and songs.”
The Emperor smiled. “Very good. Take us to your village.”
Without another word, the girl turned and led them through the forest.
Vader figured the girl’s village must have been founded by slaves who’d escaped from one of Ryloth’s mines, or by refugees displaced long ago during the Clone Wars. Many such villages existed on Ryloth, and many of those had little or no contact with the outside world. The Empire knew of the settlements, of course, sometimes disbanding them and “relocating” the people to labor camps if slave labor was needed somewhere, but generally the Empire left them alone. The girl’s village had no ship and no communicator, though, so it would be of little use to Vader and his Master except as a way-stop. Still, there might be something there they could use.
“What’s your name, girl?” the Emperor asked her as they picked their way throu
gh the trees.
“Drua,” the girl said. She looked at Deez. “What’s your name? And why do you wear that…suit?”
Deez seemed momentarily taken aback by the question before saying, “My name is Sergeant, and it’s my honor to wear this armor.”
The Emperor diverted the conversation. “So you’re out here on your own, Drua?”
“Of course! I know the forest as well as any.” She looked up through a hole in the forest’s canopy. “The rain is going to end within the hour.”
“Where are your parents?” the Emperor asked, and Vader thought it an odd question to come from his Master.
The girl did not turn back to face them, and her voice fell a bit when she said, “My mother died two winters back. I didn’t know my father.”
“Not unlike you, apprentice,” the Emperor said quietly.
The words dredged Vader’s memory. He flashed for a moment on his mother, a slave; flashed, too, on the Tusken Raiders who’d killed her, on the satisfying moments when he killed them, all of them, every one of them.
“You live alone, then?” the Emperor asked.
“Of course not! I live with my grandfather,” Drua said.
“Well,” said the Emperor. “We will try not to be too much of an imposition.”
—
Cham checked their location against the coordinates on his comp.
“Getting close,” he said to Goll and Isval, who walked on either side of him.
Goll signaled to his people, who had sorted themselves into their usual skirmish line formation, to fall back some and move in silence.
“Let me check the area first,” Goll said to Cham, and Cham nodded.
Goll disappeared ahead into the trees and rain. Cham marveled at Goll’s woodcraft as he and Isval stood there under Ryloth’s trees, waiting in the rain, saying nothing.