Sacrifice

  “No visual on the target yet.”

  “He must be inside already.”

  Oh, this is real. This is happening.

  It was a throwback of a thought, back to the time when Ben first started taking crazy risks, but this mission had an extra dose of risk: Omas knew him by sight, and had even met Shevu, too. They couldn’t afford to be spotted. Ben slouched and meandered as fourteen-year-old boys were prone to do, turning around from time to time to chat to Lekauf about safe and meaningless trivia—baka rock, speeders, anything—while he took a cautious look across the permacrete in Omas’s direction. And there he was: flanked by two men in working clothes, a carefully scruffy figure himself. His confident bearing gave him away as a man used to being obeyed, but only to someone who knew what he was looking for. And Ben did.

  “Going okay,” Lekauf whispered, not looking toward the three men.

  One of the GA Intelligence agents walked through the doors of Building G in front of Omas. The other followed close enough to tread on his heels. They almost vanished in the crowds inside the terminal building, but Ben kept them in sight even though he lost Lekauf for a few moments. One of them appeared to be checking the numbers on various doors and exits as he walked, and eventually he stopped at one marked 53-L and inserted a credit chip in the slot to one side. The doors parted and Ben got a glimpse of a small, brightly lit room almost filled by a white duraplast table ringed by chairs. There was already someone in there.

  The doors closed again. A steady two-way river of passengers, port workers, flight crew, and the general temporary population of a spaceport stood between Ben and the doors.

  “You can do this,” Lekauf said. “How many in there? I can’t place the strip-cam under the doors if someone else is going to come along and open them again.”

  Ben closed his eyes and concentrated on the ebb and flow of the Force, the patterns of density that he could both feel at the roof of his mouth and see as speckled color behind his eyelids.

  “Six,” he said. That made sense: two close protection agents each, even numbers, two statesmen who didn’t trust each other. “Yes, six. They’re all inside now.”

  “Can you see lottery numbers, too?” Lekauf made his way casually through the shoals of people and squatted down to adjust his boot. Ben saw him take out what looked like a small flimsi strip, then slide the thing under the hairline gap with quick ease.

  Strip-cams were very small these days, the size of a coat-check stub. They really were flimsi, and just as disposable once they’d finished transmitting.

  “Lovely,” said Shevu’s voice in Ben’s ear. “I can see right up Gejjen’s nose. Good clear sound. Nice job, Jori.”

  Eventually, Ben glanced around and spotted Shevu leaning against a drinks dispenser on the other side of the concourse. He was recording the output from the strip-cam and transmitting it back to GAG HQ. As soon as he had confirmation that it had been received and stored, he’d erase his datapad and send a code to the strip-cam to shred its data. It’d be just a scrap of garbage the cleaners would sweep up, if they ever came this way. It looked as if they wouldn’t.

  Ben and Lekauf could hear the conversation in their earpieces, both of them monitoring it so they knew when to vanish, wait for Gejjen to emerge, and follow him.

  It was a fascinating conversation. Ben had started to get the hang of the code and insinuation that beings in power used to say unpleasant things, a different language that let them deny later that they’d meant any harm. Jacen was good at it. Ben hoped he never would be, because it got to be a habit and Jacen seemed to enjoy playing that game for its own sake.

  He recognized Omas’s voice. Gejjen sounded softer than he did on the HNE bulletins.

  It was very weird to listen to a man you were about to kill. Ben was hearing the last words Dur Gejjen would ever speak.

  “So … can we agree as gentlebeings to cease hostilities while we sort out a compromise?”

  “Before or after I take this to the Senate?” Omas asked.

  “I’m not referring this to my assembly—yet. You might not need to refer it to yours,” Gejjen replied. “We’ll stand down if you agree to that form of revised wording in the commitment of planetary defense assets to the GA.”

  “You might be able to deliver that with Corellian forces, but can you pull back the Bothans?”

  “Are you sure Niathal will do as you tell her?”

  “She’s a career officer. She will.”

  “The Bothans are pragmatists. They will.”

  “As a show of goodwill, you’ll commit forces to helping us restore order in places like the Sepan system.”

  “Of course. And you need us to come back into the GA fold to stop the membership hemorrhaging away.”

  “I won’t ask for any statement that causes loss of face. I know how … proud Corellians are. Just something along the lines of differences being bridgeable.”

  “That’s very gracious, Chief Omas. Now, those differences will only be bridged if Admiral Niathal and Colonel Solo no longer carry the military weight that they do now.”

  “You want me to fire them.”

  “I think you might need to do more than fire them now that they’ve become used to getting their own way.”

  “I think I know what you mean, and I don’t care for that solution.”

  “Niathal—ambitious. Dangerous. Solo—ambitious, dangerous, and Jedi, too. We can solve the problem for you permanently.”

  “If you do, I don’t need to know about it.”

  “If we do, I’d like your security services to look the other way. Solo has ambitious minions who’d be temporarily blind and deaf in exchange for promotion, I think.”

  “I see you know of Captain Girdun, then …”

  And they laughed. The two of them actually laughed. Ben heard a faint sound as if Shevu was clearing his throat. When Ben turned his head, Lekauf was looking at him, for once not the permanently cheerful man who looked so much younger than he was. He looked old and angry.

  “That’s how much we’re worth,” he said quietly. “I bet our Intel guys in there love the idea of having their man back in command.”

  Ben’s gut turned suddenly heavy and cold. It was a dirty game all the way to the top. While he was preparing to assassinate Gejjen, Gejjen was doing a deal to strike at Jacen and Niathal, with Omas turning a blind eye.

  Everyone could be bought if the price was high enough. Omas obviously put peace above individual lives. It might not have been any different in the long run from any general risking combat casualties, but it didn’t feel anywhere near as clean.

  Ben switched his attention. He began to visualize the exterior of the terminal buildings. A walkway ran along the roof, a little-used observation deck where anyone could sit and watch vessels taking off and landing. It wasn’t a popular spot, but it was perfect for a sniper. As soon as the meeting sounded as if it was coming to an end, Ben had a minute or two to get up on that roof and wait for Gejjen to exit.

  There were three sets of doors Gejjen could leave through to walk back onto the landing field and rejoin his ship. To cover that span—a couple of hundred meters—Ben would have to be ready to sprint along that platform in either direction from a central point.

  I’m ready.

  He pressed his arm against his side and felt the Karpaki. It would be almost completely silent. He’d also be standing on top of a stark permacrete platform with no cover.

  I’ll just have to be fast, then …

  The conversation between Omas and Gejjen slowed, and there were longer pauses and more restless grunts and sighs. Business was drawing to a close. At a nudge from Lekauf, Ben began walking to the roof turbolift without even looking back. He stood in the turbolift cab with a family of Trianii looking for a tapcaf, wondering if they could smell his intentions.

  One of the GAG troopers liked free-falling. He’d told Ben that to jump off a five-thousand-meter building, there was a point where a free-faller had to simply stop workin
g up to it and step off into the void. Ben was at that point now as he walked along the rooftop terrace and took up position. He stepped back into the shadow of a single lonely air-conditioning outflow and unfolded the Karpaki. If he held it against the leg of his baggy, creased pants, it didn’t present such an obvious profile.

  There was nobody around anyway. The observation platform was cracked, and weeds were thriving in the crevices. He settled down to wait for Shevu and Lekauf to do the spotting for him.

  Jacen’s going to go crazy when he hears what Omas has in mind for him.

  “Ben, heads up.” It was Shevu. “Gejjen’s on the move. He’s exiting via the south doors. Go right.”

  Ben checked around him and jogged to the far end of the platform, keeping close to the rear wall. He hoped he’d recognize Gejjen. He’d studied the man’s face and walk intently before the mission, but now he might be looking at the back of his head, depending on the exact path he took back to the ship. It was a silly, petty doubt. He hadn’t thought it through enough before he embarked.

  But when he looked down on the permacrete, and the chaos of ships, freight droids, and species of all kinds wandering around as if it were a theme park, that neat military haircut—jet black, glossy, not a strand out of place—drew his eye like a beacon.

  He lay prone and sighted up. The optics brought him instantly a hundred meters closer to Dur Gejjen, and then there was no doubt that he had the right man in his cross wires. As Gejjen walked, two security guards in discreet casual clothes weaved in and out of Ben’s shot.

  As soon as Gejjen dropped, at least one of them would be looking for where the shot had originated. Ben would have to stay low and melt back into the crowds in the air-side terminal, then rendezvous with Lekauf at Shevu’s transport.

  I can do it. I got in and out of Centerpoint, didn’t I?

  Ben held his breath, let the Karpaki’s smart optics adjust for wind and angle, and felt his finger tighten on the trigger. One second Gejjen’s neat dark head was filling the scope, and the next Ben was staring at empty permacrete as the rifle kicked back against his shoulder. The muffled report seemed to come from a long way away. Nothing seemed to have gone down in the order he expected—shot, recoil, drop. He lay flat.

  What happened?

  Did I kill him?

  He could hear shouts carried on the air from three stories below. His body made the decisions for him and he found himself scrambling backward to the rear wall while Shevu’s voice in his ear kept saying, “Get out of there, Ben.”

  He ran at a crouch to the turbolift, found that it was on a lower floor, and took the fire-escape stairway. It was good to plan. He could merge into the crowd.

  Back on the ground floor, he slipped through the fire doors and made a conscious effort not to look panicked. Maybe professional assassins could take this in their stride, but he couldn’t. He’d put aside the fact that he’d just killed a man and found he was totally caught up in the simple act of getting away.

  When Shevu put his hand on his shoulder from behind, Ben thought he was going to have a heart attack.

  “Keep walking,” Shevu whispered. Curious crowds were gathering at the transparisteel doors to gawp at the unfolding drama on the landing strip, and security staff were struggling to get through the crowd. “Just keep on walking.”

  If they sealed the doors …

  It was chaos. Nobody seemed to know what had happened yet. That bought Ben, Shevu, and Lekauf a few more minutes. Charbi seemed the kind of place where passengers and freighter captains would walk right past a dead body if it meant their flight left on time.

  They were counting on it.

  “I’m right behind you,” said Lekauf’s voice in his earpiece. “If we walk down to the south doors, we can just go around the perimeter to Shevu’s shuttle.”

  Ben was scared. He was happy to admit it. He hadn’t been afraid at all on Centerpoint, but now he knew better. He kept a little distance between him and Shevu, remembering to pause every so often and look at the commotion as if he were genuinely curious about what was happening, but he carried on walking.

  Above him, the holoscreen that usually showed arrivals and departures was turned over to the traffic-control tower’s view of the landing strip.

  Yes, he’d killed Gejjen, a textbook head shot.

  I can’t feel my face. My lips feel numb.

  Now Ben was seconds away from those doors, walking with the steady but thinning stream of droids, repulsorlifts, and passengers heading out to the vessels.

  Nearly there.

  He was a few meters away from the transparisteel doors when he saw a man in familiar casual clothes running at full tilt toward them. The doors parted, and Ben was staring down the muzzle of a blaster.

  “Armed officer, CSA!” the man barked. “Everybody—stay where you are—”

  Ben balanced on a blade’s edge between surrender and making a run for it.

  chapter ten

  Verpine negotiator Sass Sikili, speaking today at the opening of BastEx, has warned Murkhana that the Roche government will respond with “appropriate measures” if it continues to breach trade agreements on technology exports. Murkhana is keen to move into the growing market for secure small-unit comlink networking, a field dominated by Verpine products.

  —HNE business news, noted with interest by Boba Fett, Mandalore

  SPEEDER PARK, ROTUNDA ZONE, CORUSCANT

  Lumiya had left a magnified wake in the Force like a water speeder on a lake. While it was generous of her, Mara wasn’t amused.

  “I didn’t get stupid overnight,” she muttered. “Don’t insult me, tin-can.”

  “And what were you saying about Luke being too close to all this?” Jaina asked. “Deep breaths, Aunt Mara. Deep breaths.”

  “I’m psyching up. I find it helps. You use the Force your way, and I’ll use it mine.”

  “Wow, am I calming you down now? That’s a headline to save for the grandchildren.”

  Mara paced a ten-meter square of the area, feeling dark energies pulsing like shock waves. Jaina stood back and watched.

  “She’s taken off from here,” Mara stated.

  “Has she led us here to divert us from somewhere else on Coruscant?”

  “She’s got a narrow range of targets, Jaina. Ben or Jacen—or even Han and Leia, if she’s teamed up with Alema. Your parents aren’t on Coruscant, and if she’s after Jacen, she must have had her chance to take him when she got into GAG HQ to grab Ben’s boots.” Mara squatted down to touch the permacrete. She expected to get a jolt of some kind, a taste of Lumiya mocking her, but there was something disconcertingly benign about the impression the Sith had left behind. Yes, like she managed to convince Luke she meant him no harm. Lumiya seemed to have discovered a rare talent for Force-acting. “If she’s after Luke, she’s passed up two chances now.”

  “So it’s Ben.”

  “Ben’s … away. He’s not on Coruscant.”

  Jaina looked at Mara with an expression that said she couldn’t work out why Mara was stalling her. But Mara wouldn’t budge. The less the family knew about Ben’s situation, the better. Sooner or later, it’d slip out that she’d put a trace on him, and however old he was when that finally happened she’d lose his trust forever. It would hurt him.

  “GAG business,” Mara said, answering the unasked question. She cast around in the Force, groping for anything that said Lumiya was heading for Vulpter, but she had no sense of that at all. What she picked up was Ben, nervous for a moment, then disappearing as Jacen must have taught him. She’d have to tackle that when the current emergency was under control. “Okay, if she wants me to follow her, I’ll follow.”

  “Let’s call in Zekk and Jag, because I’m betting Alema’s in town again, and—”

  “No offense, Jaina, but I think it’s me she wants. You go find Bug Girl.”

  Jaina’s pursed lips looked like she’d decided to swallow an argument. “Okay,” she said at last.

  “It’s
just an old dark side feud.” Mara didn’t want Jaina to feel that she was snubbing her. Relations were edgy enough at the moment. “Let’s not allow her to divert both of us.”

  So Lumiya was taunting her. I can get at your husband. I can get at your son. If she was so set on killing Ben for the death of her daughter, she still seemed to be missing chances. So what did Lumiya want from her?

  Mara returned to base to find one of the ground crew waiting patiently by her allocated XJ7. She climbed into the cockpit and started her instrument check.

  “Is Lumiya really a Sith?” the technician asked.

  “The very last of her kind,” said Mara, not asking what he’d heard and how he knew the name anyway. She felt a pang of guilt at her sloppiness for arguing loudly and forgetting there were other personnel around. She sealed the XJ7’s hatches. “I’ll make sure of that.”

  Mara ignored military air traffic regulations and circled over the area where she’d last picked up Lumiya’s powerful wake. If she concentrated, it was relatively easy to follow, and she found herself leaving Coruscant orbit on a bearing for one of the moons, Hesperidium.

  “Oh, yes, Palpatine loved that place,” she said aloud. “You heading there for old times’ sake?”

  Lumiya was definitely playing a game. But she wasn’t stupid enough to think she could offer Mara her hand and find it still intact like she had with Luke.

  The wake led to Hesperidium’s main resort, which wasn’t quite as splendid as Mara recalled. She wondered if it was feeling the pinch of postwar recovery, and if there still weren’t enough tastelessly wealthy folk to go around. Port traffic control was surprised—to say the least—to find a military vessel on its scanners.

  “I need to put down for a while,” Mara said, knowing they had no choice about the matter. They could hardly stop her landing. “Getting weird readings on my instruments. I have to check it out.”

  “Let us know if you need help,” the ATC controller said. “We pride ourselves on doing anything and everything for all our visitors.”