Star Wars: Knight Errant (23 page)

“Can we get to the subject?” Kerra stood in front of him, arms akimbo. “We have to deal with the refugee problem.”

“Yes, you’re right,” Rusher said, nodding. “When can we get rid of them?”

“What?”

He pushed past her down the hallway. “You said we had a refugee problem. I agreed. I never really intended for you all to stay aboard this long.” He looked up. “There was just more to take care of first.”

Kerra steamed. “I’ll say. And I’ve been taking care of it!” She stalked down the hall after him. “And
‘get rid of them.’
That’s just great!” She shook her hands as she walked. “I’m not sure what I should have expected from someone who works for Sith Lords!”

“Who else am I supposed to work for? The Republic?” Rusher laughed. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but they closed all their branch offices.” Pausing, he looked back at her for a moment, studying her.

Kerra flinched under his gaze. “What?”

“Just remembering what that kind of energy was like.” He turned and began walking again.

“I’ve counted six hyperspace jumps. Are you telling me we haven’t found a single suitable port since then?”

“Depends on what you mean by suitable,” Rusher said, climbing the ramp toward the double doors leading to the bridge. “And whether I care about your definition.
Suitable
for me means a place where Daiman won’t shoot at me on sight for fleeing.”

Kerra gawked. “We’re still not out of the Daimanate?”

“We couldn’t very well cross into Odion’s territory—or Bactra’s. Not without knowing what in blazes is going on.” He slapped the button to activate the doors. “It’s required some detours.”

Kerra watched the general half limping down the steps into the command pit. His leg really was giving him pain, she saw, but he kept forgetting to put the cane in the correct hand.
Huckster
.

Rusher stood behind the signals officer. “We’ve been trying to scan for any news at all, to see what the score is. We don’t know. Maybe it
is
safe for us.”

He looked up at Kerra, who shook her head. “Daiman wanted the kids for his military-industrial brain trust,” she said. “He’d find them.”

“And if there’s the slightest chance Daiman and Odion have united, this is no place for them—or you.”

She was glad he seemed to readily agree. “It doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “I mean, really, you have no idea how much blood has been shed between these two.”

“I have an inkling.” That was an understatement, she thought.

“Daiman and Odion have been at each other’s throats—well, since Chagras died.”

Chagras
. Kerra knew the name from the intel reports and Vannar’s stories. The Chagras Hegemony had been a relatively stable period in Grumani sector politics, during which the Sith made inroads against the Republic. The invasion of her Aquilarian home had come during the Hegemony. Luckily for civilization, it hadn’t lasted long. Eight years earlier, Chagras’s death, under reportedly mysterious circumstances, had touched off a new round of internecine fighting. Not just within his own realm, but seemingly everywhere in Sith space.

Rusher confirmed that Odion and Daiman’s war had
broken out then—the creator of all things still in his late teens. But he had no idea what they were fighting over, or what had caused it all. Rusher knew of Chagras—he’d fought both for and against him in his younger days—but he’d never met him, and had no idea what had killed him. “What kills any of them?” He related the ends of Elcho and Mandragall. “I don’t know where longevity comes from with these people, but it isn’t lifestyle.”

Kerra knelt and rested her head against the railing, stray ebon strands falling on either side. None of it made any sense. Why would Odion and Daiman team up, even briefly? She sensed an unseen hand at work. But she always sensed that, among the Sith. Exasperated, she moaned audibly. “Can’t we just go to the Republic?”

“Who said anything about going to the Republic?” Rusher looked at the navigator. “Ishel, do you know how to go to the Republic?”

The Mon Calamari shrugged.

“I sure don’t,” the brigadier said. “Hey, how’d
you
get here?”

“There was a lane to Daiman’s transport center near Chelloa,” Kerra said, rubbing her forehead against the cool railing. A headache was beginning. “I don’t think it’s an option.”

“I’ll buy that.” In the weeks since Odion and Daiman tangled over Chelloa, traffic from the Daimanate military hub had doubled. “I might amble by there with a shipful of Jedi, but not just one. Next time, bring some friends.”

Kerra opened her eyes and glared through the railing.

“What’d I say?”

“Nothing,” she said. She stood, knee joints cracking. “Look, can you just get us
closer
to the Republic?”

“What are you looking for—convenient connecting flights? I don’t think you understand. The hyperspace
lane options out here are pretty limited.” Rusher called up a holographic display and pointed to the glowing lines. Avoiding Daiman’s and Odion’s space, they’d have to make another six jumps to get appreciably closer to the frontier with the Republic—and a couple of times they’d have to double back. “And you’ve got different Sith waiting in between each of those jumps. They’re not going to wave as we go past.”

Kerra scowled. It was the chief difficulty she’d experienced since her arrival here. In the Republic, one could count on ready access to databases including most of the known commercial hyperspace lanes. The military kept some private, and some corporations tried to keep newly discovered lanes secret when it benefited their trade.

But in Sith space, everything was different. In shutting down its subspace communications relays here, the Republic had created a breakwater of ignorance between Sith space and the inner systems. No longer able to draw upon the collected knowledge of Republic spacers, Sith starship drivers were reduced to using the information they already had stored, plus whatever was in libraries and data centers in their territory. Repeated fragmentation of Sith power had greatly degraded what was available in the latter; as Odion had just done against Daiman, statelets often targeted each other’s knowledge centers for destruction.

Aboard one of Daiman’s fighters in the Chelloa episode before Darkknell, she’d had access to exactly one hyperspace route: the intended route Daiman had planned for that vessel to take. Maps meant options. Possible escape. Cartography was power, and, increasingly, Sith Lords were hoarding it.

Rusher clapped his hands loudly. “Okay, I’ve got it here.
Byllura
.”

Kerra looked up at the display. “Byllura isn’t closer to
the Republic. It’s farther away,” she said. “Farther away is not better.”

“Sometimes it is, out here.” Rusher touched a control, causing gridlines to appear in the air, delineating the latest territories known to the
Diligence
crew. “Byllura belongs to the kids.”

“What kids?”

“I don’t know,” Rusher said, waving his hand through the display to move stars around. “I’ve never been back this far. But they say there’s a Sith principality that’s run by children.”

“Children?”
The idea sounded like a bad Republic holodrama. Kerra imagined playground kingdoms run by angry young Sith with tousled hair. “You don’t mean that.”

“Well, I don’t know much about it. I always imagined it was some kind of regency deal, with the power behind the crèche and all of that.”

Kerra stared at the pseudo-stars and breathed deeply. If there
was
someone running the realm for them, she couldn’t imagine the situation lasting very long—not where Sith were concerned. “How recent is what you know about the place?”

“Heard from someone who went near there once. They’ve been in power for five years, at least,” he said. “Sounds odd to me, too. None of these Sith underlings is very patient. I would think ‘old uncle’ would have done them in by now—or ‘old aunt,’ or the palace pastry chef.”

Seeing Rusher smile, Kerra gave in. If he was pleased with his solution, moving him might take another week. “I don’t see we have any choice,” she said. “I guess, whatever happens, they can’t be as hateful as the adults.”

“There were other kids at that Jedi school, weren’t there?” Rusher asked. “You
have
met some before.” He glanced back toward the exit. “I mean, before this week.”

Ignoring him, Kerra started toward the exit. There would be a lot to do, presuming the place was remotely satisfactory. Which she wasn’t at all sure it would be. “None of them sets foot off this ship until I check the place out—
mercenary
.”

Sounding amused at the label, Rusher called after her, “This is Sith space, Jedi. We’re not going to find our way out—and we’re not going to find the paradise you’re looking for.” Scaling the steps from the command pit, he found her in the doorway, glaring back at him. He shrugged and raised his hands. “You’re just going to have to settle for the best we can find—and the best is the least-worst.”

Kerra stared back at him, icily.

Rusher turned to his crew and smiled, again the jolly drunkard. “You know, I’m glad I got that out. I nearly said
least-beast
.”

“No,” she said. “That would have fit.”

“Regent-aspect,” the girl called.

It wasn’t a command, this time. Calician woke from his daze and looked toward the pile of orange pillows at the center of the room. It was happening again. The boy atop the plush mountain was shaking, droplets of sweat streaming from his pale forehead.

The fever had returned. Quillan was seeing the future. The future, or something so far outside his frame of reference that it tested his understanding. Black eyes searched the room, as the human searched for—what? Words? Fourteen years old, and Quillan had never spoken once in Calician’s presence.

Kneeling beside him, his sister, Dromika, fought to follow the boy’s trembling movements. Making small, frantic motions with her hands before her frail sibling’s face, she fought to capture his attention.

Calician stepped as close as he dared. Only the care
droids were allowed to physically approach the twins, and he was only supposed to address them from his dais. Standing anywhere closer disoriented Quillan too much. The teenager’s perceptions were too strong. Everything that made Saaj Calician an individual was already shining through the Force, blinding the boy. Additional visual stimuli only overwhelmed him. It was the reason, he now remembered, for his robe, colored to match the walls.

Her brother calmed, Dromika spoke for him, as she always did. “Regent-aspect,” she said, tracing in the air with her fingers. “Regent will sense the approach of new aspects,” she said, voice wavering.

“I will sense the approach of new aspects,” Calician droned.

The Krevaaki closed his eyes and tried to focus his mind.
Aspects
. It was how Quillan and Dromika referred to all agencies outside themselves, organic or electronic. Twins, separated in body, but conjoined through the Force—one being, that no power in science or Sith alchemy could separate. They had been just five years old when he met them—very young, as humans went—and they had never, in Calician’s memory, set foot outside their Loft.

And yet, Calician had realized on meeting them that they represented that which he most desired: power. True power, beyond the imaginings of any of the neighboring Sith pretenders. Power that would one day rule the galaxy.

Dromika clenched her long blond hair in her fists. “Regent will find the aspects, and include them.”

Calician repeated the command. His audience over, he stepped back outside the siblings’ lair. The nanny droid passed, ready again to help Dromika in her hours of grooming. He had his own job to do.

Include
. There had been a time, long ago, when he hadn’t understood that instruction. He hadn’t really be
longed, then. His ego had still stood in the way of enlightenment. He was still thinking of other Krevaaki, and what his outfit looked like, and how he might be the one Sith to put down the Republic once and for all. All trivia. Such information was useless to his masters. It need not exist.

And soon, none of their rivals would exist, either. Gliding down the spiral ramp to a lower floor, the regent spied the creature that would help make it happen.

The giant brain floated, asleep, in its cloud. Calician stared at it. Adrift in its cylinder of deadly cyanogen gas, the grotesque alien form paid him no mind.

The Celegian was old. It had been the first one that Calician had captured and brought to The Loft, years earlier. Already two centuries old by then, the monstrosity had been no match for its abductors. The alien still bore signs of being brought to heel; several of its hanging dendrites were no more than stumps, severed by the torturers.

Calician hated Celegians. One of his few lingering memories was of being mocked as a child: “Saaj Celegian,” the other Krevaaki had called him, jealous of his piercing intelligence. During his Sith education, he had finally encountered real Celegians at one of their colonies on Tramanos. If he hadn’t already disliked them, he would have started then. The creatures flew about in their self-propelled gas envelopes, trying to participate in the world’s commerce as if they weren’t colossal floating brains. By never acknowledging their own ugliness, they seemed to expect others to ignore it, as well—an uncomfortable burden for their counterparts, to say the least. And while the Celegians had inborn telepathic skills, enabling them to surmount all language barriers, they seemed to have little interest in using their special
abilities for influence and power. Ludicrous! What was an advantage if one didn’t press it?