Star Wars: Knight Errant (34 page)

Rusher’s smile froze. “You must know something I don’t, then.”

“Probably.”

With thigh-high boots, the woman kicked the reptile into motion. As it loped in a studious circle around the pair, Kerra watched Rusher. The man was dumbstruck,
for a change. Arkadia had punctured one of his historical heroes and sounded authoritative in the process.

I’m going to have to study up so I can do that
, Kerra thought.

“You wanted us here, ma’am,” Rusher said. “What can I do for you?”

“It’s what I can do for you,” Arkadia said, bringing the beralyx to a stop. “It’s as I said. I’m here to help. You were leaving Byllura when we found you. I understand you have refugees aboard.”

Kerra studied the woman as she dismounted. The Jedi only came up to Arkadia’s chin. “The refugees weren’t from that conflict,” Kerra said. “We’re just passing through.”

“I know,” Arkadia said, raking ice from the nodding beralyx’s eyes. “You told us that. And I am aware of what happened in the Daimanate. To the arxeum they were bound for,” she said.

Rusher looked at Kerra, puzzled. They hadn’t mentioned where their passengers had come from in their transmissions.

Arkadia continued, not looking at them. “I am willing to help your students—and to provide for your ship’s needs, Brigadier. But I need something first.”

Abruptly, she turned toward them. “You do have a refugee from Byllura,” she said, piercing eyes focused on Kerra. “What I really need right now … is to see
Quillan
.”

Kerra stiffened. “I’m sorry?”

“Don’t toy with me, Kerra Holt,” Arkadia said, looking down. “I know you have Lord Quillan of Byllura aboard your ship. I am prepared to render aid, but only if the boy is produced first.”

Rusher started to move toward the ramp, but Kerra grabbed his arm. “Hold it,” she said. Eyeing Arkadia, she waved her hand. “Look, what ever the boy once was—
he
isn’t
now. I saw what your people did to the Dyarchy ships. I know he was a rival. But he’s not a threat to you now.” She wondered what she was doing, speaking for a Sith—but the pathetic creature under guard didn’t seem to be that. Not anymore. “You don’t have to kill him.”

Arkadia looked down at Kerra, her face betraying no emotions. After an icy moment, she burst into laughter.

“Kill him? Of course, I’m not going to kill him!” she said, smiling broadly.
“I’m his sister.”

Still under construction, Arkadia’s citadel had been built inside a series of connected ice calderas. With the collapsed underground reservoirs’ contents having long since boiled off to space, Arkadia’s builders had simply erected a thatch of ice pillars above, topped with a layer of transparisteel. The result had been a massive airtight compartment inside the ice, far larger than it appeared on the surface and roomy enough for an entire city.
A creature hiding under a shell
, Kerra thought.

And Calimondretta, as Arkadia called it, was as alive as the surface was dead. Emerging from the cab of the trundle car—the tracked ground transport Arkadia had sent to
Diligence
—Kerra surveyed the great atrium. Hundreds of workers thundered past, crisscrossing artificial flooring stacked with orderly piles of supplies. With Arkadia’s starships forced to park outside, Patriot Hall served as a massive depot. Several ramps led gradually downward from the main floor to large galleries hewn into the glacier.

Only stars shone through the transparent ceiling; night had fallen for the second time in four hours. Syned was the complete opposite of Darkknell and its endless days and nights. But the place was bright, nonetheless, thanks to long tubes embedded in the ice walls. Effervescent blue liquid coursed through them, giving off a
warm light. “Our lifeblood,” Arkadia said, turning over the beralyx to a wary green-skinned handler. “Synedian algae.” The seas under the ice sheets were full of the stuff, she explained, drawing energy from thermal vents. Whole sections of Calimondretta were devoted to cultivating and processising the algae, which provided both fuel and food for the settlement. “We use every molecule of it. Nothing is wasted.”

Kerra observed her own breath. “It still doesn’t keep it very warm here.”

“Some guest you are,” Rusher said, stepping out of the trundle car. “Don’t criticize someone living in an ice house for not turning on the heat.”

At least he had that overcoat of his, Kerra saw. He hadn’t bothered to find anything more for Kerra to wear, nor had he spoken to her on the ride over. She figured he was still stinging over the cane incident. But at least she hadn’t done that in front of his crew. What was he upset about?

Her eyes darted to the foot traffic, now flowing around their parked vehicle. After the dismal streets of Darkknell and the robotic misery of Byllura, Syned had plenty of energy to it. The citizens in Patriot Hall looked up and around as they walked, not down at the floor. And most of their clothing was brand new: uniforms of varying colors and styles. Those clearly didn’t all come from the algae.

“We have something for you,” Rusher said, slapping the side of the trundle car. Trooper Lubboon emerged from inside, pushing Quillan down the ramp in a brown hoverchair. His hands fastened to the handles of the antiquated model, Quillan appeared nearly catatonic.

Stepping to the foot of the ramp, Arkadia looked down at the teenager. No trace of emotion crossed her face, and Quillan didn’t respond, either—not even when Arkadia knelt beside him, cape flowing on the chilly floor. Kerra
studied the two together. Beyond the high foreheads, she couldn’t see much resemblance—nor a lot of big-sisterly warmth coming from Arkadia. But at least it was a peaceful meeting. Arkadia had assured her earlier that not all Sith siblings were like Daiman and Odion.

“Still hiding in there, little Quillan?” Arkadia said, searching his eyes.

Suddenly the boy moved in his chair. Arkadia appeared startled for a moment before noticing that Tan had scampered up behind her. “Ah. Hello, girl,” Arkadia said. She looked up at Kerra. “Why is she here?”

“I didn’t want to bring her,” Kerra said, grabbing at Tan’s shoulder and pulling her back. “She’s one of the students—I mean, the
refugees
. But we need to calm Quillan down to move him, and she seems to help.”

Arkadia nodded to the girl and stood, directing Beadle toward an ice portal where her aides waited to take care of Quillan.

“Why did you bring Beadle?” Kerra whispered to Rusher.

“We’re trying to be as unthreatening as possible, remember? The worst thing Lubboon might do is run over her foot with the chair.”

“It’s a hoverchair.”

Rusher rolled his eyes. “Believe me, he’d find a way.”

At least he was talking again, Kerra thought.

Returning from seeing her brother off, Arkadia addressed the military man. “You became part of history yesterday, Brigadier. I hope you appreciate that.”

“He does,” Kerra intervened. “But what do you mean exactly?”

“The Dyarchy has fallen. After eight years, Quillan and Dromika’s realm has become part of the Arkadianate.”

By replacing the commanders on the Dyarchy’s ships of the line with Celegians, Arkadia said, Quillan could have
made them an organic extension of his planet-bound command. But there had always been a fatal flaw. The bobbing brains aboard the cruisers had to get their orders, somehow, and that had required technology. While Arkadia said she could imagine trained Force-users transcending space with their telepathy, the method seemed impractical to her. Such feats were difficult and rare, not something to be relied upon. “An error of youth and inexperience,” she called it. “Quillan always would have been dependent on a physical linkage, somewhere. And that linkage could be attacked.”

Arkadia explained that she had just dispatched an agent to Byllura seeking to compromise that connection when Kerra suddenly appeared, disrupting Quillan’s communications at the source. “It was then that we thought to help you,” she said. “And you did your work well. You triggered our invasion.”

“Help me?” Kerra felt the pain in her leg coming back. “What do you mean?”

“Divide and conquer” came a familiar voice from behind the trundle car. Around the transport strode the Bothan, wearing a brown parka matching his fur.

Kerra gawked. She hadn’t seen the spy since Daiman’s castle on Darkknell. But it had definitely been the Bothan’s voice back on Byllura. “You—”

“I take it you know each other?” Rusher said, eyeing the new arrival with puzzlement.

“Yes, I know him! This is—this is …” Kerra stopped, stymied. She’d never learned his name.

“Narsk,” the Bothan said, looking up at the brigadier.

Rusher scratched frost from his beard and smiled. “I got it! You’re the guy from Daiman’s torture wheel!”

“Well, thanks for the help,” Narsk said, little regarding the general as he stepped past. “Here is your final report, Lord Arkadia.”

Arkadia took the datapad from the spy and read.
Narsk described the contents as she did so. Even now, her forces were landing on Byllura, taking control of the whole regime.

Kerra grabbed at his sleeve. “I thought you worked for Odion!”

“I’m an independent contractor,” Narsk said coolly, “much like your friend here who doesn’t help people. Arkadia is the highest bidder.” He paused. “Of the moment.”

“This is why I like you, Narsk,” Arkadia said, not looking away from the datapad. “I always know where I stand with you.” Reading, a faint smile crossed her face. “This is good.”

“Your forces have taken Hestobyll without a shot fired, my lady,” Narsk said. Arkadia’s advance guard had installed itself in The Loft, and was sending forces across the planet to free the Celegians from their prisons. The Dyarchy’s network would be dismantled, and all its citizens—floating brains included—would become contributing members of the Arkadianate.

Kerra looked in the direction Quillan had been taken. “What … will happen to Dromika?”

“She will remain in her mountaintop home, supervised and tended to,” Arkadia said. “Far away from her brother. They should never see each other again, given their curious connection. I don’t know what kind of life it will be for Dromika, but I expect it’ll be superior to what she had.” She paused. “I’ll visit her later, to check in.”

“And Calician?”

“Dead,”
Arkadia said, slapping the datapad on Narsk’s chest.

The Bothan nodded and took the device. “The regent was executed just before I received the call. They said he met his end quietly.”

Kerra stepped back. The figure she’d fought had acted
as one possessed, but in the hologram, the Krevaaki had seemed almost tragic. “Why did he have to die?”

“Quillan was the mind,” Arkadia said, “but Calician was the
mastermind
. He built the system. Maintained it. He made possible all that my brother wrought.”

Another enabler
, Kerra thought, looking over at Narsk and Rusher.
I’m surrounded by them
.

“Every Sith sees a different path to rule of the galaxy,” Arkadia said. “But once a strategy has been shown to fail, the strategist must pay the price.”

Kerra looked back at the Bothan. “And when exactly did you stop working for Odion and start working for her?”

Arkadia regarded Narsk civilly. “Agent Ka’hane is someone I’ve worked with before,” she said. He’d contacted her just after the Battle of Gazzari morphed into a war on Lord Bactra, claiming that he’d had enough of Odion and Daiman for a while. “One can hardly blame him, really. I dispatched him to Byllura. And the rest,” she added, smirking gently at Rusher, “is history.”

“You thought you could get me to do your dirty work,” Kerra said acidly.

“You
did
,” Narsk said with a sneer.

“Actually, once he told me you were there, we didn’t know
what
you might do,” Arkadia said. “But you’ve tended to be a destabilizing factor, wherever you’ve gone. We expected an opportunity might arise this time.”

Narsk bowed to Arkadia. “Is there any other service I can perform?”

Arkadia studied Kerra for several seconds. “Perhaps. Stick around, Narsk. I’m sure there’s something you can do.”

The Bothan looked back at Kerra. “There is something. She has property of mine—back on her ship, I suspect.”

The stealth suit
, Kerra thought. “Oh, that! I gave it to a
little girl. Good luck getting it back.” Suddenly reminded, she looked up, startled. “Tan! Where’d she go?”

Rusher pointed down one of the huge blue-lit hallways. “She went with Beadle and the boy.”

“Here we go again,” Kerra snarled. “Does anybody ever make it back to your ship?”

“Hey, you brought her. You lost her.”

A hand touched Kerra’s shoulder, chilling her. “Don’t worry,” Arkadia said. “She’s no doubt excited. There is a lot for her to see in our city—and for you, too.”

“Me?” Shrinking from Arkadia’s reach, Kerra looked around. She’d been expecting guards to show up to cart her away to wherever they kept captured Jedi, presuming they had such a place. But everyone she’d seen had seemed like a civilian.

“This isn’t a concentration camp, Kerra. It’s civilization. An enlightened community, which will welcome your refugees.”