Empire's End: Aftermath (Star Wars) Page 9

  The slaves continue creeping toward her.

  They’re going to kill me. Or turn me into one of them. She flashes on that: her and Brentin, bleached white, painted with blood-red dust, kissing the rotten flesh of this wretched slime-snake. Their “mistress.”

  She tries to imagine the Empire that she will one day rule: And the image of it, once strong in her head, is now a fading picture, like a painting under floodwater, its colors running, bleaching to the point of oblivion.

  It’s ruined. It’s over. There is no Empire.

  I’ll never be the Emperor of anything.

  The Hutt is right. I’m no grand admiral.

  I have my revenge and only that.

  That decides it. She hurriedly tells the Hutt:

  “What’s out there is a weapon. You let me go—you let me get Rax—and you can have it.” The Hutt dismisses it with a wave of her long-fingered hand, and the slaves advance. Brentin cries out as they smash his face harder into the stone. Sloane feels her blood pulsing in her neck like a bird trapped in a tightening grip. She keeps talking: “The weapon out there is bigger than any Death Star we’ve ever built. Imagine it. Imagine it being not in our hands, and not in the hands of the New Republic, but in the hands of the Hutts. Your hands. It is a weapon built for a god. Or…a goddess.”

  It’s a deception. She has no idea what the weapon is. Or if it’s a weapon at all. But if the lie gets her passage, lets her survive…

  Niima’s hand goes up, quivering fingers splayed out.

  The Hutt-slaves cease their advance.

  “Mendee-ya jah-jee bargon. Achuta kuna payuska Granee Ad-mee-rall.”

  The words echo louder when the box translates them:

  “WE HAVE A DEAL, GRAND ADMIRAL. YOU MAY PASS. YOU WILL TAKE ME TO THE WEAPONS FACILITY.”

  “Take you? No, I must go—”

  Alone.

  But the Hutt is already turning around, slithering back toward the tunnels. Her slaves are again struggling to get underneath her, and when they do, they lift her up back toward the nearest chamber.

  As she slithers forward, the Hutt says, translated:

  “COME, GRAND ADMIRAL. MY TEMPLE AWAITS. FIRST WE FEAST. THEN AT DAWN WE LEAVE.”

  They call him the old veteran, which is funny because he’s only ten years old. But he’s been here longer than all the other kids. Refugees come and refugees go, all from worlds either damaged in war or where the Empire was run off, leaving only chaos in the absence. Some of the children stay for one wave, two, even three—but eventually someone comes, someone fancy, and adopts them.

  But not Mapo.

  Mapo, with one ear gone, half his face looking like the business end of a woodworking rasp. The scar tissue, like bad ground, runs up from his jaw, over the hole that used to be his ear, and to his scalp. The hair doesn’t grow there. For a while he tried growing the rest of his hair out and letting it fall over that side like a river going over a waterfall, but the maven said it just made him look even less approachable.

  (As if such a thing were possible.)

  His arm on that side, too, isn’t so good anymore. It’s bent and hanging half useless like the arm of some clumsy blurrg. It works. But not well.

  Now he stands in the Plaza of the Catalan, on the far side of the Silver Fountain. Theed is a city of plazas and fountains, but Mapo likes this one the best. The kids call it the mountain fountain, what with the way the jets of arcing water make the shape of a mountainous peak, a peak that towers easily over those gathered here in the plaza to watch the tik-tak birds or paint the Gallo Mountains far beyond the capital’s margins.

  Through the spray, he sees a shape sitting on the far side. Just a silhouette blurred by the rush of water.

  “You can go talk to him,” Kayana says. The young woman is one of the Naboo here. She’s a minder, one of those who watch the children.

  “No, it’s okay,” Mapo says. “It’s fine. He’s busy.”

  “I’m sure he’d love to meet you.”

  She gives him a little shove. He grunts and thinks, Nobody wants to meet me. Maybe that’s why Kayana is shoving him, because she’s shuttling him off to someone else. He heard the minders talking a couple of weeks back and they said he was a real downer.

  Still, maybe she’s right. And it’s not like he has anything else going on. Mapo won’t be adopted today. Or tomorrow. Or never ever ever.

  Mapo walks the circumference of the fountain. The wind carries the mist over him, cooling him down. He lets his finger trail along the stone top of the fountain’s border, drawing lines in the water that fast disappear.

  And then there he is:

  The Gungan stoops down, sucking a small red fish into his mouth with a slurp. A tongue snakes out and licks the long, beaklike mouth, and the funny-looking figure hums a little and sucks on his fingers.

  Mapo clears his throat to announce his presence.

  The Gungan startles. “Oh! Heyo-dalee.”

  “Hi,” Mapo says.

  The two of them stare quietly at each other. The silence stretches.

  The Gungan has been here as long as Mapo has. Longer, probably. Since children started coming in by the shipload as refugees, the Gungan has served them, performing for the kids once or twice a day. He does tricks. He juggles. He falls over and shakes his head as his eyes roll around inside their fleshy stalks. He makes goofy sounds and does strange little dances. Sometimes it’s the same performance, repeated. Sometimes the Gungan does different things, things you’ve never seen, things you’ll never see again. Just a few days ago, he splashed into the fountain’s center, then pretended to have the streams shoot him way up in the air. He leapt straight up, then back down with a splash. And he leapt from compass point to compass point, back and forth, before finally conking his head on the edge and plopping down on his butt. Shaking his head. Tongue wagging. All the kids laughed. Then the Gungan laughed, too.

  The clown, they call him. Bring the clown. We want to see the clown. We like it how he juggles glombo shells, or spits fish up in the air and catches them, or how he dances around and falls on his butt.

  That’s what the kids say.

  The adults, though. They don’t say much about him. Or to him. And no other Gungans come to see him, either. Nobody even says his name.

  “My name’s Mapo,” the boy says.

  “Mesa Jar Jar.”

  “Hi, Jar Jar.”

  “Yousa wantin’ some bites?” The Gungan holds up a little red fish and waggles it in the air. “Desa pik-pok fish bera good.”

  “No.”

  “Oh. Okee-day.”

  And again, silence yawns between them like a widening chasm.

  The boy can see that the Gungan is older than some of the others he’s seen here in Theed. Already Jar Jar’s got wiggling chin whiskers dangling—not hair, but little fish-skin protuberances. They dance when he moves, like when he gently brings a fish to his lips, his movement slow and hesitant as if he’s not sure he should. The Gungan is watching Mapo more than he’s watching his fish, though—and suddenly it slips out of his hand. He tries catching it with his other hand, and the fish slips from his grip there, too. He makes an alarmed squawk, and suddenly his tongue shoots from his puckered lips, capturing the fish midair and launching it into his mouth. Jar Jar winces as a little sound (grrrkgulp) comes from him.

  Mapo laughs.

  Jar Jar offers a big smile. Like he’s not even embarrassed by it.

  It just makes Mapo laugh harder. Jar Jar seems pleased by the sound. As if it’s music to him.

  “Where yousa comin’ from?”

  “Golus Station.” The blank look in the Gungan’s eyes tells Mapo that he doesn’t know where that is. So Mapo tells him: “It’s above Golus. Gas planet in the Mid Rim. The Empire was there. They used us as a refueling depot? But when they left, they decided to…blow the fuel tanks. I guess so nobody else could have them. Take my toys and go home, that sorta thing. My mom and dad…” Mapo is angry with himself that he can�
��t say it even after all this time. The words lodge in his chest and he just looks away.

  “Oie, mooie.” Jar Jar shakes his head, looking down in his lap. “That bera sad-makin.” Then his eyestalks perk up. “Yousa wantin to see a trick?”

  Mapo arches his one remaining eyebrow. “Okay, sure.”

  The Gungan chuckles and dips his head in the fountain, filling his face with water. His beak and cheeks bulge. Mapo expects him to spit it out, but he doesn’t. Instead he seems to tighten his body, his neck thickening with tension and his eyes popping wide.

  Then: Water sprays from the Gungan’s flappy ears. Fsssht! As his cheeks shrink, the water comes gushing from each side of Jar Jar’s head.

  Mapo can’t help it. He laughs so hard his ribs hurt. Jar Jar doesn’t laugh, but he sits back down, looking as satisfied as anybody can get.

  When the boy is finally done, he wipes the tears from his eyes.

  Mapo grins. “That was gross.”

  Jar Jar gives a thumbs-up.

  “Nobody really talks to me,” the boy blurts out.

  “Mesa talkin to you!”

  “Yeah. I know. For now. And nobody else does. Nobody even wants to look at me.” Mapo doesn’t even feel real, sometimes. Like maybe he’s just a ghost. I don’t even want to look at me.

  Jar Jar shrugs. “All-n nobodies talkin to mesa, too.”

  “I noticed that. Why don’t they talk to you?”

  “My no so sure.” The Gungan makes a hmm sound. “Mesa thinkin it cause-o Jar Jar makin some uh-oh mistakens. Big mistakens. Der Gunga bosses banished me longo ago. Mesa no been to home in for-ebbers. And desa hisen Naboo tink I help the uh-oh Empire.” For a moment, the Gungan looks sad. Staring off at an unfixed point. He shrugs. “My no know.” Though Mapo wonders if he knows more than he’s saying.

  “I don’t think you helped the Empire.” Mapo says that without being sure of anything, but he doesn’t get the feeling this strange fellow would’ve done anything like that. Not on purpose. He’s just a sweet old clown. “Maybe you just don’t belong anywhere, like me.”

  “Mabee dat okee-day.”

  “Maybe it is, uhh, okee-day.” Mapo sighs. “I don’t think I’m going anywhere, Jar Jar.”

  “My no go somewhere, either.”

  “Maybe we can go nowhere together?”

  “Dat bombad idea!”

  “Oh.” Mapo dips his chin to his chest. “Sorry.”

  But Jar Jar laughs. “No. Bombad. My smilin! Wesa be pallos, pallo.” The Gungan pats the boy on the head.

  Mapo doesn’t know what’s going on, but bombad must mean “good,” somehow, so he goes with it. “Can you teach me to be a clown, too?”

  “Bein clownin is bombad, too. My teachin yousa, pallo. Wesa maken the whole galaxy smilin, huh?”

  “Sounds good to me, Jar Jar. And thanks.”

  Jar Jar gives him a thumbs-up and a big grin. Pallos, indeed.

  Night on Chandrila. Wind eases in through the windows, the curtains blowing, the breeze bringing the smell of sea brine and late-summer mist.

  “Look,” Solo says, the holographic star map floating in the space amid him, Temmin, and Sinjir. “Jakku’s a dirtworld, so that’s good. You won’t need to find a spaceport. The trick is getting past the blockade and landing somewhere they can’t see you.” He swipes the air and the hologram goes away. “I don’t have any good maps of Jakku, but I can tell you most of that place is just dunes and rocks. But the buttes and plateaus lead into canyons, and canyons are a fine place to lose the Empire.” He smirks. “Trust me, I know. Any bolt-hole you can find: Take it.”

  Sinjir watches the smuggler. A smuggler, or a hero of the Rebellion? Does it even matter anymore? He’s about to be a father. That’s his role, now.

  And it’s driving him nuts, by the look of it. Sinjir’s seen something similar: Back in the Empire, you’d have officers stationed in faraway places, remote locations, distant bases. Some of them had that glint in their eyes, the wild stare of a tooka-cat someone tried to domesticate—it’s the spark of dissatisfaction with your own captivity. Like you’re trapped. Always imagining a different life.

  It’s important to see that spark, and to know it can turn into a full-on steel-melting fire if you aren’t careful. Sinjir always knew to look for those around him with that flash in their eye. It was always they who would betray the Empire. Their wildness made them dangerous.

  Solo’s like that. That wildness—some combination of foolhardiness and happy lawlessness—is there behind his stare. He longs for adventure. Craves it like some poor souls crave a smear of spice on the tongue. (Or a drink on the lips, he thinks.)

  And in this way, it makes sense suddenly that Solo fit so well inside the Rebellion. The Rebel Alliance was just a formalized coalition of criminals seeking to undermine their government, rebels angry at their captivity—caged, as they were, by a lack of choices. (Though maybe that’s Sinjir’s lingering Imperial side talking.)

  All this is why Sinjir could never be a father. Solo will eventually find comfort in his captivity, but Sinjir would never find such peace. Settling down just isn’t one of his skills. It’s why he had to be rid of Conder.

  (Conder…)

  His mind suddenly wanders, his heart flutters, and he curses himself.

  Solo confirms what Sinjir already suspects when the pirate says: “Now, I told you, you can take the Falcon…but you’d be a good sight better if you let me captain it. You don’t know her like I do. She’s…finicky.”

  “I flew it back from Kashyyyk, y’know,” Temmin says.

  “Not it. Her. Give the Falcon some respect, kid.”

  “Fine, yeah, okay. I just mean: I can fly it. Her.”

  Right now, it’s just the three of them in Leia’s apartment overlooking the coast. Ten steps to their right and they’d be out on the balcony, gazing out over the Silver Sea, the stars scattered across the night sky like a million eyes gazing back. I’d kill to be out there right now with a jorum of skee in my hand, a little ice in the glass, and nobody to bother me.

  (Conder…)

  Foul, traitorous brain! Quit your meandering.

  He has to bring himself back to the task at hand. Jakku. Norra. Jas. Fine, yes, the droid, too. And Solo’s helping them.

  He’s helping them without Leia knowing, too.

  She’s gone. Probably all night. The princess is with the chancellor and a spare few others, trying to determine the best course of action for the Empire and Jakku. That path, however, is a political one. Temmin and Sinjir have no time for politics. By the time the political machine growls to life and churns out a solution to their problem, Norra and Jas will be dead. So will Sinjir and Temmin. All of life in the galaxy will be dead because politics is slower than a mud-stuck AT-AT.

  The plan is simple: Fly in with the Falcon, fast and furious.

  The plan is also very stupid.

  Sinjir says, “Might I offer a contrary suggestion: How about we don’t immediately fly a recognizable rebel ship into a starfield filled with the vessels of an enemy fleet. Instead, let me suggest sweet, sweet subterfuge. Those ships are being supplied somehow. We discover their supply line, we sneak aboard a cargo ship or shuttle—costumed in the guise of freight—and we let them deliver us to the surface like a present for a king.”

  “You want us to hide in a box,” Temmin says, scowling.

  “Well. When you put it that way, it sounds rather dreadful. But yes, we could hide in a box.” He’s about to ask Solo again if maybe, just maybe the smuggler has a bottle of Corellian rum hidden somewhere in this domicile—

  The front door opens. The droid, T-2LC, steps inside with a servo-whine. And following after is Princess Leia.

  She stops when she sees them. With a sigh, she says, “I should’ve known a conspiracy would bloom in my wake.”

  “Hey,” Han says, laughing. “Don’t blame me.”

  “I always blame you.”

  He says to Sinjir and Temmin, sotto voce: “She really
does.”

  The princess comes and sits down next to her husband. It’s fascinating to watch, because usually, Leia was all about the formality: Dealing with her sometimes felt icily mechanical, like you were meeting an assassin droid who, quite frankly, had precisely zero increments of time for your foolish human nonsense. Now, though, they’re seeing her in the midst of her humanity—at home, tired and pregnant, the airs of her royalty put aside for a time. Either that, or they’re really becoming friends.

  Leia sits and her hands move to encircle her belly, settling on the underside. It must be quite a weight. She’s getting…full, Sinjir thinks. He decides that it must be a horrid thing, to carry a child. It’s a parasite, basically. Amazing that humans are willing to procreate when this is the burden that results.

  He’s glad he doesn’t have to worry about any of that.

  “You’re back early,” Han says to her.

  “I have the kind of heartburn that would drop a tauntaun faster than a Hoth winter,” she explains. “Mon is with Auxi, now. And Ackbar, too. They’ll be fine.”

  “Here,” Solo says, hurrying to his feet. “Lemme get you a glass of ioxin powder, that’ll settle your chest.”

  “No,” she says, waving him off. “Let me just sit. Besides, that stuff tastes like I’m sucking on an Imperial credit.” Her dubious, laserlike glare suddenly turns to Temmin and Sinjir. The both of them look to each other, like vermin fixed by the stare of a nearby raptor. “I assume you’re all cooking up a plan to go to Jakku and rescue Norra and Jas.”

  “Uhh,” Temmin says, obviously unsure how to answer.

  Sinjir shrugs. “Well, we’re not forming a boys’ choir.”

  “You’re not thinking of going along.” That, directed at Solo with a thrusting, accusatory finger. It’s not a question; it’s a command.

  “Me?” Solo says, smirking nervously and offering up both palms in a kind of ha-ha surrender. “I’d never! You can’t get rid of me that easily. I’m here with you and the little bandit.”