Star Wars: The Last of the Jedi, Volume 9 (5 page)

“Senator Organa is our enemy. Behind my back he is trying to rally a group of Senators to fight against the installation of Imperial Governors.”

“They will fail.”

“Of course,” Palpatine rasped. “I
control
the Senate. But its voice will be heard. Organa is a problem. We must move up our plan. We must involve him in
Twilight.”

“We have tried,” Vader said.

“I am tired of
failure!
”

“Yes, Master.”

Palpatine tucked his hands inside the wide sleeves of his robe and strolled to a different window. “Ferus Olin is on Alderaan,” he remarked. “Working on 
something…unimportant. Chasing Force-sensitives. He can do no harm. But your paths will cross on Alderaan, no doubt.”

“I do not know why you continue to promote Olin,” Vader said. “You
know
where his loyalties lie.”

His Master turned to face him. A grimace of amusement was on his face. “Loyalties change. Surely you are proof of that.”

“He will defect to the Empire?”

Palpatine turned away again. “He will do as I
foresee
. He wants power and control. He is
strong
in the Force. A decision awaits him.”

It was a riddle, yes, but its meaning was clear. Vader’s suspicions were correct. With his ruined body he was a disappointment. His Master would promote Ferus until Ferus defected or until
Vader destroyed him.

The confrontation lay ahead. He had already set the trap by killing Roan Lands. When Ferus came at him, it would be with rage, not control.

He will not know how to use his anger,
Vader thought.
It will be so easy
.

Easy things were not satisfying for him. They never had been.

This would be the exception.

Chin resting on her hands, Astri Oddo used her fingers to prop open her eyes. She’d been staring at data for six hours straight. It was four o’clock in the morning,
and everything was starting to blur.

“Want some more of this?” Clive Flax waved a triple-strength protein stimulant drink in the air.

Astri let her head fall on the desk with a soft thud. “I need sleep.”

“Wimp.”

Astri rolled her head to look at Clive. “There’s nothing here. We’ve gone through every record we have. You think Flame is a code name for Eve Yarrow. We’ve looked
through every file on Yarrow, and there’s nothing linking her to Flame.”

“Isn’t that strange?” Clive said. He began to manipulate the special repulsorlift chair Dex used when he had to move fast. “We know she’s not dead. We know she left
her homeworld of Acherin.” He spun the chair around to face Astri. “Isn’t it weird that she just…disappeared?”

“No,” Astri said tiredly. “It’s not weird, Clive. It’s normal. I mean, it’s the new version of normal. She was imprisoned by the Empire. Eve Yarrow had every
reason to disappear. She managed to get all her wealth off-planet, and she most likely bought herself a new identity.”

“That’s another piece that doesn’t fit,” Clive insisted, making lazy circles in the air on the chair. “How did she manage to smuggle all of her wealth out of a
planet occupied by the Empire—
after
she’d been arrested?”

“Maybe she’d prepared ahead of time. Most rich people have a backup plan. Maybe she was just smart.” Astri shrugged. Even the small movement made her feel tired.

“Or connected.”

“Face it, Clive.” Astri closed the holofile on Dex’s desk. “We’re done. There are no records left to search. Nothing more I can slice into. We’ve gone as far
as we can go.”

Clive leaped out of the repulsorlift chair as it was still spinning. “You’re right!” He hurried to the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To wake up Keets!”

Astri rested her cheeks on her hands and sighed. Time was running out. The group was having trouble settling on the first Moonstrike meeting, but they would find a way. Flame was a hero to them
all. It was only Clive who felt something was off. If he was right—and Astri doubted that he was—every resistance movement in the galaxy could be compromised.

Who was Flame? A great hero…or an agent of the Empire?

Hero…agent.

Hero…agent…

“Wake up, my beauty!” Clive’s voice caused her to jerk and bang her chin on the table. She’d fallen into a doze. “We’ve got work to do!”

Keets looked as sleepy as she did. “What’s going on?”

Clive guided him to a chair at Dex’s long dataport desk and pushed him into it.

“We’re investigating Flame. We haven’t told anyone because, well, at this point, we’re a little short on facts.”

“Meaning we don’t have any,” Astri said.

“Meaning we’re basically going on my intuition,” Clive explained, “which has never failed me in the past.”

Astri raised an eyebrow.

“Well, okay, it’s failed me a number of times, but never mind. Didn’t you tell me that before you went underground you’d done a major exposé of the Banking
Clan?”

Keets nodded. “My editor wouldn’t publish it. Somebody leaned on him. So I quit. Then the Empire put a death mark on my head. Not a good day.”

“What did you uncover that would scare the Empire so much?”

“Well, it was before the Clone Wars were over,” Keets said. “The Chancellor still needed the support of the Senate. They weren’t exactly licking the hem of his robes back
then. Not like now.” He yawned. “So I dug up the fact that Palpatine had helped the Banking Clan develop a whole system of secret bank accounts for huge corporations on a ring of
planets. They weren’t subject to any accounting or taxes. That way Palpatine had the support of the clan, as well as the richest corporations in the galaxy. Of course, this isn’t much
of a surprise now. Back then, it could have made a difference. He was costing planets billions of credits in lost revenue.”

“Do you think those accounts still exist?” Clive asked.

“Of course they do,” Keets said, rubbing his eyes. “The only difference is that now Palpatine himself controls them. Credits keep pouring into them, and he doesn’t take
anything, but he knows it’s there if he needs it. It’s a brilliant backup plan.”

“So, if a wealthy person wanted to hide wealth, it would be a perfect system for them.”

“Sure.” Keets looked more awake now. “What are you getting at? You’re going to have to bring me up to hyperspeed.”

“You’re saying that Flame’s wealth—the credits she keeps spreading around—that it’s actually held in
Empire-controlled accounts?
” Astri looked
at Clive, astounded.

“I don’t know,” Clive said. “But wouldn’t it be a good idea to find out? Look, if she’s Eve Yarrow, that means she left Acherin with a vast fortune. She
couldn’t just walk into any bank in the galaxy and deposit it without someone reporting on it.”

“There are plenty of places in the galaxy to hide wealth,” Astri observed.

“Sure, for criminals,” Clive said. “But what about upstanding citizens? How could they do it without the Empire’s help? It’s a whole new galaxy now, my beauty. The
Empire’s eye is everywhere.”

Astri shook her head. “You’re jumping to conclusions again.”

“So we jump! We don’t have time to stay put,” Clive declared. He turned to Keets. “Do you still have your notes?”

“Sure. I loaded everything onto Dex’s databank. He’s trying to collect all the information he can so that any resistance will have a data library to go to once we start really
organizing,” Keets said.

“Can you trace a specific corporation’s holdings? Astri wasn’t able to. It’s buried.”

“No, it
disappeared
,” Astri said sharply. “If it was just buried, I would have found it.”

“I’m sure the Empire wiped it. But I have the records from before the Clone Wars officially ended,” Keets said. “I might be able to turn something up. Yarrow Industries,
right?” He moved to the dataport. His fingers flipped through holofiles while he searched. Clive drummed his fingers on the desk.

“Here we go. The operations for Yarrow Industries were moved near the end of the war to Niro 11. That’s a moon ringing the planet Niro, which was once pretty much owned by the
Banking Clan.”

Astri leaned forward. “Does it say who authorized the transfer?”

“No, just that it was authorized. Some top-level Imperial, I’m sure.”

Astri read over Keet’s shoulder. “Wait a second. That’s standard bank security coding. I might be able to slice into the records.” Keets moved over, and she sat at the
computer. Her fingers flew as she concentrated, wide awake now. In a few minutes, she let out a low whistle. “I can’t break in, but I can see that the account is active. There’s
levels of privacy code here. A trigger if it gets accessed from the outside. It’ll send off an alert.”

“So what do you think?” Clive asked.

Astri spun around on her chair. “I think we’re going to Niro 11.”

The sight of thousands of blooming yellow flowers amid the grass was amazing indeed. As the park came into view, Ferus stopped walking just to take it in. It was like a blue,
green, and golden sea that undulated in waves caused by the breeze, each shiver uncovering another vivid shade.

“What’s the matter?” Hydra asked next to him.

“The flowers,” Ferus said, still visually stunned.

“Oh. That.” She kept up her pace, not pausing a bit. “I’ll start interviewing the parents.”

He had tried to get rid of her, but could think of no plausible excuse to keep Hydra away. She had researched the park and knew about the festival, and of course the two of them could cover more
ground than one Inquisitor could.

The park was full of children, as though the city of Aldera had shaken out all their youngsters into this one area. Children running, children squealing, children gathering baskets of the
bell-shaped flowers. As they walked into the park, one of them, a charming girl with golden curls, threw a handful of flowers into the air as if in greeting. Golden blossoms fell on Hydra’s
brown hood. The disgust on Hydra’s face would have been comical if the whole thing weren’t so serious.

“It will be hard to keep track of all these children,” Ferus said.

“That’s our job,” Hydra said.

Ferus could only bear Hydra’s company for so long. “Let’s split up so we can cover more territory,” he suggested. She glided away.

Ferus called on the Force to help him slow time and sharpen his perceptions. It was a state of alertness that was very close to battle-mind. Now instead of an indistinguishable mass of happy
faces he picked out individual after individual. The greedy boy who could not stop chewing his muffins as he gathered more flowers, the little girl sitting with a small hill of flowers in her lap,
the minder who was weaving the flowers into a wreath for her silent and watchful charge.

A little girl caught his attention, a glint of sun on hair so pale it was the color of moonbeams. She scooped up handfuls of petals and scattered them as she ran. A smaller girl followed her,
mimicking her movements. Although only a toddler—she couldn’t have been walking for very long—she ran in wide loops through the long grass, without the usual unsteadiness of a
girl her age. As Ferus watched, a toy, a model of a starfighter, winged through the air toward the girl. She caught it in her hand and sent it shooting back, looping in the same way she was
running. As she ran she caught the toy again and flung it backhanded this time, where it looped and came toward her again.

Not easy. Extraordinary balance and reflexes for someone that young. An observer would merely think her…precocious.

He strolled forward, keeping a parallel track. As he got closer he gathered in the Force around him and searched, but could feel no answering Force from the little girl. If she had a Force
connection, he couldn’t feel it. But nevertheless he felt…something. Instinct pricked the back of his neck.

They were approaching the stairway to the top of the bluff. The girl ran up it, following the taller, pale-haired girl. Ferus followed.

“Winter!” the toddler called out the name, and the pale-haired girl turned. The toddler pointed straight ahead at the gate.

“They fixed it,” the older girl said.

A slender young woman with coiled braids hurried up the steps past Ferus. “There you are, you two!”