Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II (13 page)

“All systems are fully operational, ” PROXY advised her. “We are ready to return to the fleet and report. “

She wasn’t looking forward to that. The question of what she should tell who remained very much open. Should she debrief with Leia or report on developments with the Rebel Alliance leadership?

“First we have to find out where the fleet is, exactly, ” she said. “Plot a course for Malastare. That’s the best place to start looking. “

“Yes, Captain Eclipse. “

Juno tapped her index fingers on the instrument panel while PROXY performed the hyperspace calculations. The mission on

Dac had been an unqualified success, but it had left her with a faintly empty feeling, as though opportunities had been missed and the obvious overlooked. She didn’t know where that feeling came from, exactly. Perhaps no more than because every time she worked with Bail Organa one-on-one it reminded her of Starkiller.

On Felucia they had discussed the mystery surrounding his past and whether she trusted him. On Corellia they had been looking for PROXY, lest information the droid contained fell into the enemy’s hands. This time, there had been no mention of Starkiller, but thoughts of him had been unavoidable. If he hadn’t died, Kota wouldn’t have died; if Kota hadn’t died, they wouldn’t have been on Dac in the first place. The shadow he cast still stretched long over the Rebellion, a year after his death.

She physically shook herself. How much longer would it take before she got over him? Hadn’t she grieved enough?

“Coordinates prepared, ” said PROXY. “Are you well. Captain Eclipse?”

“Yes, ” she said, rubbing her eyes and telling herself to get a grip. “I’m all right. Give me the controls. I’ll take us there. “

“Yes, Captain. “

The R-22 hummed under her hands, ready for dust-off. She took a deep breath. This was what life was about, she reminded herself: the roar of engines; the flow of data; the magical yet utterly mechanical routine of traveling from A to B through hyperspace. She had missed being directly behind the controls of a ship. That was the one thing she regretted about accepting the commission to command the Salvation.

She wondered briefly how Nitram and her crew were faring without her. They felt unimaginably distant, like a dream she had once had.

Like the past she couldn’t call back.

“Enough, ” she told herself, and hit the repulsors with a firmness that surprised her.

SHE SLEPT BRIEFLY during the hyperspace jump, in several short bursts. It was a long journey, from the Outer Rim on one side of the galaxy to the Mid Rim on the other. First they followed the Overic Griplink to Quermia, where they joined the busy Perlemian Trade Route. The risk of discovery was greater where traffic flowed most readily, so at Antemeridias they took a side route, following the Triellus Trade Route around Hurt space all the way along the galactic arms to the Corellian Run. There they took a series of complicated legs incorporating parts of the Llanic Spice Run, the Five Veils route, and the Sanrafsix Corridor to an uninhabited world called Dagobah on the Rimma Trade Route. They followed that particular route to the Hydian Way, and thus came to Malastare from the opposite direction to the one she had originally set out on.

Juno stretched as far as she could in the cramped cockpit when the high-gravity world hove into view. Orbit was a mess of ships displaying Imperial and independent transponders. The world’s last Chief Magistrate had been transferred thanks to his habit of shooting the locals for sport, and the Empire’s rule had been contested ever since. High-gravity AT-AT walkers hunted for Rebel outposts in deserts while insurgency groups picked off Imperial officials in the city. Both indigenous Dugs and settled Gran fought fiercely alongside each other to maintain their independence. Juno hoped the citizens of Dac would look to Malastare as an example of how to proceed in the coming months.

Even here, she realized with a sinking heart, was a reminder of times past. The former Chief Magistrate had been Ozzik Sturn, who had moved from Malastare to Kashyyyk, where he had come last in an encounter with Starkiller.

Ripples in a pond, she thought, as she had over Cato Neimoidia. Starkiller had been a particularly large pebble…

She took the controls and descended on course for Port Pixelito, the world’s capital city and largest spaceport. A trio of TIE fighters buzzed her, but she easily outflew them. Unlike Dac and

Cato Neimoidia, Malastare had little the Empire actually wanted; otherwise there would have been Star Destroyers descending en masse to remind the world of where its loyalties should lie. The low-level campaign against its citizens was just enough to remind them that they shouldn’t get too comfortable. Their time would come.

Port Pixelito was a tangled sprawl of low, squat buildings, as befit the higher gravity. Air traffic was lighter and less regulated than elsewhere, and Juno guided her straining R-22 to an empty berth without needing to register with the local authorities. Malastare was, effectively, a free port for non-Imperials, making it a perfect place for the Rebel Alliance to reallocate goods and staff. She had visited several times prior to gaining command of the Salvation, and made several important contacts, as well. The man she was coming to see was just one of them.

The repairman.

When the starfighter was in its berth, she shut down the engines and popped the hatch. City smells rushed in, prompting her to pull a face. A crumbling civil administration had disadvantages, too.

“Stay with the ship. ” she told PROXY. “If anyone comes near it, do your best Wookiee impersonation and scare them away. I won’t be long. “

“Yes, Captain Eclipse. I will inform you of any unexpected developments. “

She checked the charge on her blaster and hurried off, scowling at a number of unsavory characters checking out the R-22’s well-maintained lines. Poor security was another problem Malastare suffered from, thanks to the ongoing urban conflict. Starfighters were valuable machines that could be easily adapted to other purposes. Left unguarded, the R-22 wouldn’t last an hour.

Juno emerged from the spaceport and checked her bearings. The streetscape had changed somewhat since her last visit. At least one of the major landmarks was gone, probably demolished during a strike from either side. People brushed by her, grunting impatiently. She spotted a dozen different species in the first ten seconds.

There. She found the sign she was looking for and cut a path through the crowd toward it. In blinking yellow and green pixels, it promised REPAIRS-NO QUESTIONS ASKED and hung above the entrance to a green, two-story building that might once have been a small theater. Graffiti advertising the latest Podrace covered the walls almost entirely from ground to roofline. She had watched one of the planet’s high-speed extravaganzas the last time she had visited; it had made even her pulse race.

Juno walked through the door, brushing past an elderly insectoid Riorian clutching a dented gyrostabilizer to his chest. He chattered something to her in a dialect she didn’t understand then hurried away.

“Another satisfied customer, ” said the Gran behind the shop counter, smiling hopefully. Its three stalked eyes blinked at her in the low light. Two Kowakian monkey-lizards, possibly a rare breeding pair, chased each other across the tops of shelves stuffed with dusty machine parts. Their squawking voices were loud in the claustrophobic space.

“I’m looking for your boss, ” she told the Gran. “The repairman. “

“Lots of people looking for him. Who says he’s here?”

“He never goes anywhere. Tell him it’s Juno. “

The Gran hesitated, and then lowered its snout to speak into a comlink fixed to the counter. Its native tongue was another Juno couldn’t interpret, but she heard her name mentioned at least twice.

A voice answered in the same dialect, and the Gran nodded and pointed at the shelves.

“You know the way?”

“Unless you’ve changed it, sure. “

The Gran pushed a concealed button, and a section of the wall slid aside. Juno went through it and waited for the panel to close behind her. There was a moment of absolute darkness and silence, and then the inner panel clicked. She slid it aside and walked into the workshop.

It was a mess of starship components, droid limbs, photoreceptors, sensors, wires, core processors, field generators, environmental units, and more. Stacks of parts stretched high up to the distant ceiling, while some hung suspended in nets cast from corner to corner. Several ramps led up and down to farther layers, and Juno knew that the deepest levels contained the components required to make weapons and targeting computers. Many of the broken machines that came through the store contained information relating to the Empire’s activities in the system and beyond, and the Rebel Alliance had gained valuable data by tapping into this inadvertent leak, as well as sourcing much of its military materiel from reclaimed or completely rebuilt items.

She looked around, standing on the rips of her toes to see over the piles.

“Over here, Juno, ” called a familiar voice. “Come on through. “

A mop of blond hair was just visible on the far side of the room. She wound her way through the close spaces of the workshop to where its owner was working. The main workbench had moved, but it looked about as messy as it had the last time she’d been here. Myriad fragments of a multitude of machines covered its surface, mixed with all the delicate tools of the trade, material, sonic, and laser. As she approached, the owner of the tools put down the blue-spitting lance he had been working with and flipped back his visor.

“Well, well. It is you! Pull up a seat and tell me where you’ve been. You don’t write, you don’t call-I was beginning to get worried. “

She dragged a stool over to the bench and gratefully perched herself on it. Her calves were killing her in the high g. The so-called and literal repairman, Berkelium Shyre, was a human technician who had been living on Malastare for more then a decade, and-after an initial hitch or two-had successfully ridden our the transition from Imperial to independent rule. He was broad-shouldered and very strong, thanks to the local conditions, and his loyalty to the Rebellion was matched only by his skill with machines. Juno couldn’t tell how old he was, for the freshness of his features and skin were matched by stress and worry lines, the origins of which she had never asked about. They had become friends over the months she’d helped the Rebellion strengthen its hold on the planet. She’d lost count of the number of late nights they’d spent discussing tactics and drinking cheap Corellian whiskey. He’d sent her the occasional cheerful message since, letting her know that all was well on her old patch. She’d always been too busy to respond.

“I’m looking for the fleet, ” she said. “Do you know where it’s moved to?”

“Hey, not so fast, ” he said with a grin. “I mean it. Tell me what you’ve been up to. I won’t let you go without having at least a halfhearted conversation. “

She caught a faint edge to his tone and wondered if he suspected she might have turned traitor. That was a reasonable concern, and a reassuring one. He shouldn’t hand out the fleet’s location without proper cause, even to someone he thought he knew.

“Well, you know I was promoted, ” she said.

“You told me that when you were last here. We’ve missed you in the sector. How’s it going?”

She didn’t want to tell him about her contretemps with Mon Mothma, but she found herself doing it anyway. It felt good getting it off her chest. Shyre had always been easy to talk to. There was something so direct and open about him. She saw no judgment at all in his cheerful blue eyes.

“Suspended, eh?” He pushed a couple of fuses around his workbench with the tip of magnetic screwdriver. “That must be hard. “

“Well, I’ve been keeping busy. “

“I bet. You couldn’t help yourself. That droid of yours still playing up?”

“Actually, he’s on the mend now. No more visual glitches. mostly. He worries sometimes about his lack of a primary program, though. I don’t suppose you could help me with that?”

He shook his head. “Afraid not. Specialized units like PROXY, you probably need to replace the whole core. “

“That’s what I figured, and they’re thin on the ground. Thanks regardless. “

“Anytime, Juno. “

There was a small but awkward silence.

“So, ” she pressed him, “the fleet… “

“It’s not far from here, ” he said, not taking his eyes off her. “In the Inner Rim, just off the Hydian Way. Ever heard of a place called Nordra?”

“No, ” she said, “bur I’ll find it. “

“Stick around the area and they’ll find you. “

“Thanks, Shyre. “

She hopped carefully down from the stool, mindful of twisting an ankle.

“Wait, ” he said, raking her arm. “Do you really have to go so soon?”

“Places to be, Emperors to overthrow, ” she quipped.

“But you’ve only just got here. You haven’t told me about what you’re feeling these days, where your head is. “

She didn’t remember ever talking much about that kind of stuff, with anyone, and it was her turn to wonder what was going on. Could he have notified Imperial agents who might already be converging on her location?

She tried to pull away, but his grip was too strong. She did throw him off balance, though, and the gyros of his stool whined in complaint. From the waist down, he was entirely machine. His legs had been lost in the early days of Malastare’s independence, when a thermal detonator had gone off in the middle of a squad of saboteurs he had been helping, leaving him crippled. He had built the prosthetic himself and traded active combat for offering support behind the scenes, professing perfect satisfaction with his lot. But there were those worry lines…

Was that what this was about, she wondered-turning on those he felt were responsible for ruining his life?

“Let go of me, Shyre. “

He did so immediately. “Sorry, Juno. I don’t mean to be pushy. I just wish you’d stay. “

“I’ll be back. Don’t worry, ‘ about that. “

“No, I mean stay. Here. With me. “

Understanding suddenly dawned, and she felt like an utter fool for misreading the cues so badly. Betraying her was the last thing on his mind.