Empire's End: Aftermath (Star Wars) Read online

  Then someone said something—a bartender back in Cratertown, one of the first people they’d met on this world. He said for them to be careful, that someone had been stealing children.

  The Empire needs children. Wasn’t that what Rax told her?

  She asked the bartender: “Where? Why?”

  He said he didn’t know, but they’d been taken by thugs belonging to Niima the Hutt. Most taken from small villages and from the makeshift orphanages run by the anchorites. “That’s where most of the kids are kept. Nobody wants children running underfoot when you have a heavy-gauge blast-drill blowing chunks of canyon wall apart. So they dump them there, with the anchorites and their nurse-women.” The bartender added: “I would’ve never let my kids go there.”

  The thought hit her: If Rax had been a child here, what if he was there? An orphan left behind for the anchorites?

  That’s when she found the trail. And it began with a man named Anchorite Kolob. He was a wretched old monk, carved by wind and sand and worst of all by time. She found him kneeling in a mud-daub hut with a bent metal roof. He was praying. When she demanded he help them, he did so willingly. But he also said the man she seeks is not a man named Gallius Rax. Rax is a lie, a false identity, he explained.

  “Galli was the boy,” Kolob said, his voice shaking.

  He said to her that Galli was always a rebellious one, always running off and chasing stories. Then one day something truly changed in him. He became defiant. He led the other children astray. They began disappearing. And one day, Galli disappeared, too.

  “Now the child has returned, and he is a child no longer.” The anchorite tried then to sermonize to them, some nonsense parable about seeds growing in dead ground, but she cut him off and asked:

  “Where did he go when he used to disappear?”

  “The Valley of the Eremite. Near a rock formation called the Plaintive Hand. That was where he could be found, the stories say. He wouldn’t let anyone get close. He had…traps, he had children protecting it, he had trained beasts to guard it. It wasn’t far from the orphanage…”

  “It’s not far from here?” Brentin asked.

  “It’s quite far from here. This orphanage is not that one.” The old man’s eyes fell into a dead, faraway gaze. “That one burned down.”

  Brentin said, “Let me guess. That was the last you saw of Galli.”

  “It was, it was.”

  “Do you know what’s there now?” Sloane asked.

  “Nothing, as far as I know. Just the valley, the Hand, and the desolation that this world knows so well. But I know this: Now that Galli is back, he has returned to the Plaintive Hand. We’ve seen ships, and none may go that way. For that way is protected.”

  “Protected by whom?” she asked.

  “By Niima the Hutt.”

  —

  They needed more information. At first she assumed, who better to ask than the troopers and officers who now occupied this world? Together she and Brentin watched them and waited—but it soon became apparent that this was not the Empire she knew and loved.

  These men and women were undisciplined. Their armor was filthy and in disrepair. Their weapons were crusted with the grit of this planet. Many troopers failed to wear their helmets. The officers looked ragged and run-down. And yet they were paranoid. They were brutal—abusing villagers, stealing food and water, lording over the small towns like emboldened bullies. Worst and most important: they were believers in what Rax had done here. They carried his banners. They gathered around and told stories of the man. “They have to buy all the way in,” Brentin said. “This isn’t a military anymore. It’s a militia. Any sign of doubt will be beaten out of them, I wager. And such bold bravado is the only way to justify following the Empire to this place.”

  “Easier to lie to yourself that this is what’s best than admit you’ve become part of something terrible?” she asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “Then we need an unbeliever.” She described the unbeliever simply: Someone who did not want to be here on Jakku. Someone who was swept along and was now caught in the machine and unable to climb out. Someone who was a loyal soldier, but not a sycophant.

  Brentin, with his technical skills, helped Sloane rig up a crude listening device. With it, they were able to capture bits of radio transmissions and conversations between Imperials.

  Then one day, they heard a trooper (ID# RK-242) telling his superior officer—a sergeant named Rylon—that he wasn’t sure what they were doing here anymore and he wondered if there was any other work anywhere in the galaxy he could be doing.

  “I just don’t want to be here anymore,” RK-242 told Rylon.

  For that transgression, his fellow troopers—led by Rylon—dragged him out into the desert, stripped off his armor, and beat him bloody. Pieces of his armor littered the ground around him like the fragments of a broken shell, and RK-242 curled up among them in a fetal ball.

  That is not Imperial justice, she thought. No honor in that. Just brute-force behavior. How swiftly order begins to disintegrate.

  They did not kill RK-242. He remained alive, if broken.

  Days later, he was back on duty. Limping around. His armor clicking and clattering as he trembled inside it.

  Sloane went to him. Had a little talk at the end of a blaster. RK-242 was thankful to see her—the moment she introduced herself, he began blubbering gratitude, snot bubbling at his nose, saliva stringing together his blistered, split lips. Sloane explained to him that this was all a plot against her—whether that was true or not, it mattered little. She said that Rax had committed a coup and had stolen the Empire from her grip.

  “He’s going to destroy us all,” she said.

  RK-242, through gulps and sobs, agreed.

  And then she pumped him for information. Everything she could. What is in the valley? What is by the Plaintive Hand? What is Rax up to?

  The trooper told her everything he knew: Rax called this world “a place of purification.” The unforgiving planet of Jakku would test them, train them, and harden them to stone. The only way to defeat the New Republic, Rax said, was to be transformed into a greater force, a cruel army, an Empire that could survive the unsurvivable.

  (That, and RK-242 referred to the man now as “Counselor Rax.” Seems her target had taken a new title for himself. How coy.)

  She explained to RK-242 that the only recourse was to remove Rax from power. Violently, if need be. The trooper nodded, gamely. Sloane said she needed to know everything about Rax, about his habits, his role here, anything. But RK-242 couldn’t tell her much: He said the Empire had established a base beyond the Goazon, beyond the Sinking Fields, and it was there that Rax was consolidating his power. Every day, the builder droids added more to the fortress, he said. And daily, too, came deliveries of TIE fighters, AT-ATs, AT-STs, troop carriers, new troopers. New ships arrived in the sky. The Empire gathered its assets, its resources, and its people.

  All here. On the planet or just above it.

  But that still told her nothing she didn’t already know.

  She asked him again about the Plaintive Hand—

  He said that what he heard is that some old weapons facility lies hidden in the sand, something built by Palpatine—or put here even earlier by, well, who knows? He heard Rax takes trips there. Alone. And that’s all RK-242 knew. He swore. He didn’t even know if it was true, but he’d heard it, so, can she help him? Can she rescue RK-242 from this purgatory?

  She ignored him and asked Brentin: “A weapons facility? Could that be why they’re here on Jakku?” Even still, that didn’t add up. The Empire needed no new weapons. It built the greatest weapon in the history of the galaxy. Twice. It did not need new battle stations. It needed new leadership.

  But, the Empire did love its war machine. And maybe what’s out there is something far greater than the Death Star ever was. A desire to find it—and to kill Rax—arose in her like hot magma churning up through the volcanic channel of her heart.
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br />   Sloane thanked the trooper. She said she’d have an important role for him, and when the time came, she’d call on him. “Get back into your armor,” she said. “Say nothing of this meeting to anyone.”

  When he turned around to pick up his helmet, she shot him in the back of the head before he could put it on. Brentin cried out. He said, “We could have helped him.” She answered: “There was no help for him.”

  Then she said they had to go there. To whatever this facility was at the end of the Valley of the Eremite.

  One problem: They couldn’t take a ship, because they’d be shot down. And going on land meant going through the Yiulong Canyons—and beyond, into the mazelike Caverns of Bagirlak Garu. And that meant one thing:

  Dealing with Niima the Hutt.

  —

  Niima the Hutt owns this part of Jakku. And her slime trail stretches much farther than this territory. Like Jabba on Tatooine or Durga on Ulmatra, her influence (and her corruption) has a long tail. She runs the black market: slaves, scavenge, kesium, bezorite.

  She isn’t just some fat slug ruler, though. She isn’t Jabba with his palace or Durga with his yacht. It’s not just gangster business as usual. Most Hutts love their parties and ceremonies. They make sure everyone kicks up a portion of their credits to the big boss that rules the region—whether as protection money or as tithe. No, Niima demands something bigger.

  Niima demands eternal service. It is not enough merely to work for her, no. One enters her stable of servants and never leaves.

  Though she treats herself as if she is a divine worm born of sand and stone, those who serve her do so because she has set herself up in the middle of everything—a fat spider in the center of a web, a tumor drawing bloodflow. She has the resources. She has the access. She controls who may move through the narrow canyons and deep caverns. Niima’s power comes from what she controls—she controls resources, and so she controls people. Even still, Sloane wonders if over time those who follow her do so out of some kind of misguided worship. Because the rewards Jakku offers are so few and so meager, you either believe in something greater or die hopeless in the dust. Those who give their lives to her see nothing else for themselves. Serving Niima is literally the best option they have in a world of refuse and ruin.

  As Niima’s long wormbody writhes atop the hands of her servants, she speaks a command: “Kuba, kayaba dee anko!”

  Her voice is hard to take: It’s as if someone swallowed broken glass and is trying to shriek through the subsequent throatful of blood. The way her gargled cry echoes through this chamber brings it back to Sloane’s ears again and again. The sound of it forces a wave of nausea through her.

  Sloane knows some Huttese, but this phrase is in a more ancient dialect. It’s more ragged, more primitive.

  Her statement means, what? “Come to me”?

  It must. Because from underneath, one of her very literal supporters emerges—this one, different from the others. A man, similarly shirtless and painted with red streaks of rock dust. His lips are the only part of him that aren’t stuck with hooks. Everything else—his wrists, the pads of his palms, the flesh of his arms and of his legs—is pierced with metal.

  He carries something over his shoulder. From a leather strap hangs a black box and a dented, rusted speaker. A translator device. This servant climbs atop her, draping the translator over the meaty lump that passes for her shoulder. When placed, the box hangs down below her mouth. Then, the slave waits, crouching upon the top of her head like a pet waiting the next command.

  He looks like a hat, Sloane thinks, absurdly.

  Niima speaks again: “Man-tah.”

  The speaker crackles with static, and then a word emits from it in mechanical, monotone Basic: “SPEAK.”

  Sloane clears her throat and remembers: Be deferential. Hutts prefer to be spoken to as if they are not merely sentient, intelligent creatures. They like to be served. They want worship. This one more than others, it seems.

  Only problem is, Sloane doesn’t do the deferential thing very well. Still, she clears her throat and makes a go of it:

  “Glorious serpent, mistress of sand and stone, Niima the Hutt, I am Grand Admiral Rae Sloane of the Empire. I come today to beseech your help. I and my traveling companion wish to pass through your cavernous territory and on toward the plateau called the Plaintive Hand—”

  The Hutt interrupts her with a gabble of laughter. “Sty-uka! Kuba nobata Granya Ad-mee-rall.” The box translates: “LOOK AT YOU. YOU ARE NO GRAND ADMIRAL.”

  “I assure you, I am, and I will retake my Empire. If you allow me to pass through, I will have much to offer you once I regain control…”

  But she already hears it in her own voice: She’s bargaining from a place of weakness. Niima wants to be served, yes, and she wants to be the Queen Worm, but alternatively, if Sloane has to bow and scrape and act like a wriggling fly trapped on the fat beast’s tongue, then she seems weak, too weak to be taken seriously. She has to be humble while still seeming powerful. This is not something she knows how to do—how to perform as such a living contradiction. How does that even work?

  Answer: It doesn’t. Again the Hutt bellows with laughter. She roars in her gargle-shriek tongue and the speaker returns a translation: “YOU WILL RETAKE NOTHING. YOU HAVE NOTHING TO OFFER ME.” To her servants, the Hutt screams: “TAKE THEM. STRIP THEM. SHEAR THEM. HAVE THEIR MINDS BROKEN.”

  No, no, no. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. The slaves underneath Niima gently ease her to the stone, and one by one they come for Sloane and Brentin. He flashes her a frightened look, his hands forming into fists.

  But Sloane gives him a gentle headshake and mouths four words: I can fix this.

  “Wait,” she says, holding up both hands. The Hutt-slaves do not stop coming, but they slow down, creeping toward her on the balls of their feet. Teeth bared, air hissing between them. “Gallius Rax is a pretender to the throne and he is weak. I will be Emperor.”

  Niima squawks, and the translator box barks: “HOLD.”

  The slaves stop. They freeze in place, as if automatons. They don’t even blink. Niima’s voice lowers, almost as if she’s confiding in Sloane, though the translator box knows no such inflection; when it decodes the response in Basic, it does so in the same mechanized monotone: “I ALREADY HAVE A DEAL WITH COUNSELOR RAX. YOU ARE TOO LATE, GRAND ADMIRAL.”

  A deal with Rax.

  Of course she has a deal.

  He has to get through her territory somehow. He’s given her something. Or offered something.

  Sloane just has to find out what.

  Once more the slaves surge toward her, grabbing at her wrists, her jaw, her throat. There’s the flash of a blade, and she thinks, Don’t fight, wait it out, keep talking, keep digging.

  Then something turns inside her. She’s been on this forsaken planet for months now. She’s tired, rawboned, and in pain. She is an admiral in the Imperial Navy and the only one deserving of ruling the Empire.

  I will not be abused anymore. Forget bargaining from weakness.

  It’s time to try the other way. It is time to remember the strength of a grand admiral.

  Sloane roars, and throws a punch. Her knuckles connect with the trachea of one of Niima’s Hutt-slaves, and he staggers back, clutching at his throat and keening in a high-pitched whine. All her NCB pugilistic training comes back to her, and she adopts a strong stance with one foot behind her and starts swinging as if each punch has to save her life—and she fears that each punch has to do exactly that. Her fists connect. A jaw snaps. A tooth scatters. A slave grabs a hank of her hair and she traps his arm, twisting it so hard she feels the bone break—the freak screams and drops, writhing like a spider set aflame.

  They keep coming. She keeps ducking, moving, punching.

  But she’s getting fatigued. Pain throbs in her middle, radiating out like the ripples after a heavy rock hits calm water.

  The Hutt screams and the box translates: “STOP.”

  Sloane
sees Brentin—he is against the ground, his arms bent painfully behind him. Blood pools beneath his busted nose. Sloane thinks: Forget him. Let him go. He has served his purpose. And yet a part of her doesn’t want to. Loyalty has to count for something. And Sloane doesn’t want to be alone. Not yet. Not here.

  So she waits. She holds up her hands.

  And it’s good that she does.

  Because more of the Hutt’s servants are crawling down out of the tunnels. Dozens of them now. A few of them with blasters, many with knives and clubs, all their weapons bound with tendon and bone.

  I can’t fight them all. I just can’t.

  “What has Rax offered you?” she asks the Hutt.

  The Hutt gargles a reply. The box translates: “WE PERFORM…WORK FOR HIM. HE PROVIDES US WITH WEAPONS, EQUIPMENT, SUPPLIES. WHATEVER I ASK.”

  Work? What work is the Hutt doing for Rax? That means her role goes beyond merely allowing him passage. Suddenly it dawns on her: What Anchorite Kolob said, about children being stolen? What if the Hutt’s people are doing the abducting? The Empire needs children…

  The slave-boys advance upon her. Slowly. Step by step. Their blades swish at the air. Their blasters thrust and point.

  “Children,” she says. “You bring him children.”

  The Hutt says nothing. But that silence is telling.

  “Did Rax tell you where he’s going?” Sloane asks. “Did he tell you what he’s doing out there beyond your canyons?”

  One-word response: “NO.”

  The Hutt’s face betrays the monotone of the translator box—the slug’s eye, the one ringed by glittering metal embedded in the flesh, opens wider.

  A sign of curiosity, Sloane thinks. Good. She presses the advantage: “Don’t you want to know?”

  “TELL ME.”

  And yet, Sloane hesitates to say more.

  If she gives this up, she’s giving up more than information. What waits out there in the sand is perhaps useful not just to her, but to the whole Empire. The trooper said it was a weapons facility. Sloane dismissed that idea at first, but maybe there really is something there. Rax is no fool. If he wants it, she wants it, too.