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Rowan Archimedes took a deep, steadying breath. Just remember, she told herself, it's an honor to serve the Empire. She laughed softly. Yes, it was an honor, especially for one in her position. Was she not, after all, the only woman ever to achieve the rank of Admiral as far as anyone knew or cared, the only woman to serve as one of the Emperor's personal guards before she began her meteoric rise to the bridge of the Executor itself? She was important and could not be disposed of easily. Just you remember that.
That thought firmly in place, she stepped into the private meditation chamber, hands clenched behind her back and eyes straight ahead. "My lord, you asked to be informed when we had the quarry trapped."
Two eyes – one ice-blue, one red, neither truly human – met her gaze levelly. Rowan fought the urge to lick her lips. It was like looking at a rancor and knowing that you might have been spared simply because you were too small to bother with. Creation preserve me, but I hate the Sith. She held the man's stare, daring him to do anything about it. He had a certain reputation, but she had not been promoted to Admiral at thirty-three by being useless. That's right, she thought grimly. You can't kill me yet. You need me.
The Sith strode towards her, black cape billowing as he walked. He was older than she, although exactly how much she would not have placed any bet on. It was hard to see his face under the twin scars that ran down either cheek, great slashes that had taken his real eyes at some point in the past. He was bald save for a single bone-white topknot, but Rowan had no idea if that was his natural coloring or not.
She had been told his predecessor had been more frightening, but she did not believe it. At least that creature had had a mask.
"The Interdictor is in place?" he asked quietly. It was more like a growling, rumbling hiss than anything else. Another remnant of an old wound, Rowan supposed. She had heard a little about his fights with Organa and her Jedi renegades – enough to chill her to the core at the thought of being between Darth Rage and his prey.
"They are, my lord. We will have boarding crews ready within moments. They will not escape us."
"See that they do not, Admiral. Things might go...badly for you, regardless of the Emperor's protection."
You still need me. You know it, and I know it. She bowed at the waist – not quite as between equals, but not subservient in any way. "It will be as you command, my lord."
***
The space yacht rocked, almost sending Malinza Thanas stumbling against a bulkhead. Almost. She caught herself on the golden railing running around the bridge and hurried to the center chair. "Report."
"We're not going to make it to the rendezvous," her pilot said miserably. "I'm sorry, Governor."
"Don't be." She smoothed her skirt absently and tucked her long braid back inside of her voluminous white hood. It was hardly necessary to wear the snow-white robes of the Inner Senate on one's private ship, but if she was to be arrested, she intended it to be in full regalia. Executor or no, she would remind the Empire that they were facing more than just the governor of a backwater planet. "Open a channel."
A small, wavering hologram flickered into existence in front of her. Malinza carefully kept the surprise off of her face when she saw Admiral Archimedes regarding her severely. She was on her guard instantly; such a powerful woman would not have personally overseen communications unless she had more than circumstantial evidence. And if the Executor had indeed found concrete proof...
Malinza swallowed down a lump of fear. "I demand to know who ordered this outrage," she said regally.
"You are in no position to demand anything, Governor." Not Inner Councilor – she really was in trouble, if there had been any doubt before. "But since you ask so nicely, the orders came from the Emperor's second-in-command. He is here with me, if you wish to protest the matter."
Rage is here? Malinza gripped the railing to keep her hands from shaking. "I believe I will," she said sharply, even though the very thought filled her with dread. "I am an Inner Councilor and I have the right to certain privileges. See that a face-to-face meeting is arranged immediately."
"Privileges?" Archimedes raised an eyebrow, then shrugged fractionally. She's toying with me, Malinza thought bleakly. "As you wish, of course. A boarding party will be on your ship shortly. I believe you can speak to Darth Rage then. Please see that your crew stands down, of course. I do not want Bakuran blood on my hands."
Malinza resisted the urge to put her fist in the woman's face. It would not have done much good anyway, not against a hologram. "I will have matters arranged," she said, careful to promise nothing. Stand down? She intended to do no such thing.
"See that you do that." Archimedes gestured and the transmission was terminated.
"We don't have much time," Malinza said, fighting to keep her voice level. "You know what you have to do."
The crew nodded and set about carrying out the plan. Hopefully the receiver was still operating and the contact was still alive to find it. Hopefully. Her hand touched the small blaster near her side and she smiled grimly. When a revolution was dying, sometimes its leaders did not live to see the victories.
***
This was all the little outpost of Draco's Well needed, Ben Darklighter thought as he listened to the wind rattling the windows of the family's small home. Even the weather was against him. He had been born during a sandstorm, he was an orphan because a sandstorm had killed his mother and father, and now he was going to miss a big vaporator harvest on account of a sandstorm. Someone up there really had it in for him.
As was usually the case when weather or the occasional bandits trapped his uncle's family indoors, the center of attention was the ancient holoprojector that delivered flickering, static-ridden news and programs. Ben supposed he was lucky; none of the other fifty households in Draco's Well owned a holoprojector of any kind. It was a certain kind of luck, however, that came with a running commentary on the headlines of the day that would have done the most obnoxious newsbeing proud.
"Propaganda. That's what it is. Propaganda." Aunt Olivea let out a loud snort and glowered at the projection. "The last time they sent a garrison, they had that trouble at Mos Eisley. Shouldn't have garrisons here."
"Halfway to the middle of nowhere, you mean?" Ben's cousin Sasha rolled her eyes and returned her attention to her datapad. She wanted to apply for the Academy's officer program next year and had gone carefully deaf to her mother's repeated hints that she would only be going when it snowed in the Dune Sea. "Anyone know what Accord 47 was?" she asked, not bothering to wait for an answer to her first question.
"Something political," Uncle Gavin answered with his usual grasp of the outside world. He was as gruff and down-to-earth as Aunt Olivea – and about as temperamentally far from his daughter as it was possible to be.
Surviving in one of these little outposts around the Dune Sea took a certain kind of person. The men and women of Draco's Well were hardy and simple, the type who would let the Sand People do what they could and just keep rebuilding endlessly, year after year, because that was the way it had always been done. Oh, sometimes a pair of restless eyes would turn to the heavens and some youth would set out to find adventure and fortune among the stars. Most returned after a year or so, discouraged by something or simply homesick. A few – a very few – left their mark across the galaxy with a blaze of glory as bright as the twin suns of their homeworld. It was generally agreed that those rare individuals were better off for having left, since they would only have created unnecessary trouble.
And yet, when the stars were dim and the night sky more oppressive than expansive, there were whispers that maybe even those few should not have wandered beyond their homes...
"Swooprace ban?" Aunt Olivea shook her head at the sheer stupidity of the Empire. "They want to impose a swooprace ban out here? With what army?"
"They've got stormtroopers," Ben said, mostly for the sake of hearing himself speak. Stormtroopers did not interest him. Nothing about the galaxy caught his eye. All of the Darklighter spirit – all of that something that set restless young men and women on paths to the stars – had been inherited by Sasha. He had received a vague aptitude for flying and not much else. The legions of adventurous Darklighters were probably rolling in their graves at the sight of their descendent.
"Stormtroopers?" Uncle Gavin chuckled. "The Emperor won't do anything while Black Sun's here."
"The Empire should wipe out crime gangs like that," Sasha grumbled. She wanted to be in a speeder patrol and hunt down the scum of the galaxy, as she called them. "Black Sun's bad enough, but there's the Hutts and the Rebels and the - "
She stopped when Ben leaned over and prodded her, but not quickly enough. Uncle Gavin had Views about the Rebels. "Girl, what have I told you?"
Sasha gave her father a bland look. "What?"
"Your cousin - Ben's great-uncle - died fighting the Empire. He was as good a man as you'll find."
"And he was a hero of the Battle of Yavin. I know, I know." Sasha shook her head in disgust. "Father, wake up. This isn't a holonovel."
"The Empire's all there is," Ben added, risking a week's worth of garbage duty in the garage. "It's all there was and it's all there will be."
Aunt Olivea put her arm on Uncle Gavin, probably intending to head off what was usually a nasty explosion. But Uncle Gavin was just looking at the two youths as if he had never seen them before. If Ben had not known better, he would have thought that his uncle was about to cry.
The holonews rattled on about another victory. The family's ancient droid went about its work.
Ben wished he had never opened his mouth.
***
Anakin Solo stepped over a pile of crumbling rubble, his ice-blue eyes roaming through the deserted plaza. It must have been lovely once, but it had been destroyed long before his time. Like so many other things.
The girl matched him step for step. Like him, she wore the sort of jumpsuit that would not have stood out on any world from here to the Core. Her dirty face had been painted: a red dot on either cheek and a red scar dividing her lip. "You have not received anything yet?" the Queen of the Naboo asked.
"Not yet." Anakin fingered his lightsaber and tried not to think about the message he was waiting for. The one that would confirm what he had long suspected.
"No need to look so frightened about it. You're not going to die." Lucéa Naberrie spoke calmly, but her eyes blazed. "You're the last now that your mother's dead. Don't you dare fail." It was difficult to remember how hard she was sometimes - how hard she needed to be to rule a dead world.
"Are you sure Corran told you everything?" he asked finally.
Lucéa just snorted. "That one? Not a chance. I just know what I heard: the Sith will not fall until the last son of the Suns is turned. Malinza's message should confirm that."
Anakin made himself smile. "Then you'll be ready to stand with the Rebellion?"
"Not until then, Solo. I will not condone a course of action that will lead Naboo to war." She leapt lightly over a fallen pillar. "The Gungan commander wants to meet with you."
Shaking off a bit of déja vu, Anakin scrambled after her.
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