Fate of the Jedi: Backlash Page 19

  “That’s a very girlie question coming from you.”

  “That’s why I’m asking you. I have no idea what the right answer is.”

  “Braid. But don’t go. It’s not just Mon Cals and Quarren. There are Mon Cal sympathizers, crazy Confederation holdouts, anti-Imperial extremists, Niathal admirers, Darth Caedus admirers …” He shrugged, apologetic. “Security considers the individuals who might want to harm you an unorganized and irrational threat, but numerous enough that they’re taking it seriously.”

  She stared at him, trying to keep frustration from showing on her face. “I can’t win here.”

  “No, you can’t.”

  “If I show up, crazies get to take a shot at me. If I don’t show up, I’m the insensitive Chief of State whose callousness led to Niathal’s death and who can’t spare the time to acknowledge her.”

  “You’re right.” Dorvan spread his hands, palms up, a What can I tell you? gesture. “So if you’re going to lose anyway, I’d prefer that you lose and be alive, so we don’t have to attend two admiral funerals back-to-back.”

  Daala breathed a long sigh. “Do you have any good news for me? Public reaction to the raid on the Jedi Temple?”

  “Still hostile. The Jedi are now being looked at as trying very hard to take care of their own problems, such as the Solos taking the mad Jedi off to be cured, and we look stupid for not being able to stop them.”

  “You mean I look stupid.”

  “Using the Mandos is being interpreted by the armed forces as a sign that you don’t have confidence in their abilities. Special forces are especially offended.”

  Daala rolled her eyes skyward, as if seeking aid from a Super Star Destroyer parked in low planetary orbit. “Is there some force I’m not aware of? Some massive conspiracy devoted to the destruction of the career of Natasi Daala?”

  “Every politician I’ve ever met has asked the same question about his or her career at some time. The answer is usually no.” Dorvan looked thoughtful. “Which means, of course, that it’s sometimes yes.”

  Daala returned her attention to him. “All right. I’ll remain in my offices and deal with any of thirty lesser crises. But I need something to divert public attention from me. Just for a day, or a week. Build a fire under the prosecutor’s office and get them hopping on the Tahiri Veila case. Make sure every development is well covered by the press.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “And make sure everyone knows that she’s an assassin, yes? That, unlike me, she actually killed an admiral? That she’s not a sweet young orphan who sells baked goods door-to-door?”

  “I’ll try to remember that part.” Dorvan spun and headed for the exit.

  From the chilly safety of her gleaming white office, Daala watched Admiral Niathal’s funeral events on her monitor.

  Niathal was laid out in a transparisteel display casket mounted atop a repulsorlift-based flat-topped vehicle that moved at a serene pace from its starting position at the Mon Calamari embassy grounds toward the distant Plaza of the Founders, the great circular public gathering place erected in the wake of the Yuuzhan Vong War. The procession was, of course, aerial—a marching event would have to take place down in the dark, dank surface levels or along winding, narrow elevated pedwalks high in the air, neither of which promoted a sense of somber elegance—and so all participants rode speeders of various types, mostly fully enclosed dark vehicles suited to politicians.

  Immediately before and after the casket craft were large barges carrying units of the Galactic Alliance Navy Drum Corps. As the procession moved along Coruscant’s permacrete canyons, they played a martial percussive rhythm that echoed off the skytowers. It was a stirring performance suited to Niathal’s career and temperament. It sounded like distant thunder organized into music.

  After the drum corps craft came the dark airspeeders of the attending ambassadors, officers, and other important beings who had regularly dealt with Niathal in life. It was a long train of vehicles.

  The procession cruised at one of the standard traffic altitudes, a height where civilian pedwalks were common, and the walkways along the entire procession route were thick with citizens. Daala saw not just faces but also signs in that throng, some of them hand-printed placards, some flashing diodes on thin sheets of flexiplast. One read GA OUT OF MON CALAMARI. Another flashed THE GREAT CURRENT WELCOMES YOU. A third, its lettering black and blocky, read DAALA, MURDERESS.

  As the procession continued, the velvety tones of holocaster Javis Tyrr floated out from the monitor, describing the action. “… passing Medway Avenue. The drum corps has begun, I believe it’s a percussion arrangement of ‘Tialga Hath Fallen,’ a traditional Alderaanian air about a warrior-queen who makes a stand against impossible odds so her children can reach safe haven. Yes, that’s it indeed, and you can hear the polyphonic tones of the sequential bells substituting for Alderaanian flutes in this arrangement. Just passing under the midlevel Medway Avenue pedwalk, which you can see is raining silver flimsi confetti down on each vehicle in a constant downpour—ah, I’m given to understand that this is symbolic of tears, this would be the tears of the admiral’s non-aquatic mourners, since the natives of Mon Cal do not cry—is the vehicle carrying Jagged Fel, Head of State of the Galactic Empire. There are reports that Fel faces increased political opposition within the Empire, so it’s very generous of him to take a day off from interplanetary matters to pay his respects to the fallen admiral. Next is the vehicle of the Mon Calamari embassy, notable for its liquid-filled rear compartments and topside entrance hatches. Curb weight of the Mon Cal vehicle in its liquid-filled configuration is in excess of thirty tons, and it can only set down on specially reinforced landing pads owing to its high kilograms-per-square-centimeter ratio. Next …”

  Daala muted the sound. While she would not object to a drum corps participating in her own funeral, the thought of her ceremony being narrated bothered her to a degree she had not anticipated. Just the notion of someone like Tyrr participating in any capacity was disturbing. She would not have wished it on Niathal.

  The procession finally reached the Plaza of the Founders. The casket vehicle and the first thirty or so speeders turned to starboard and began a slow spiraling approach to the center of the plaza, where temporary stages and landing pads had been erected. The casket vehicle landed on the tallest pad. The other speeders set down in a series of semicircles, looking like parentheses bracketing the stages, and participants streamed out from them to ascend the construction.

  An elegant middle-aged man, fit but prematurely white-haired, wearing the dress uniform of a Starfighter Command general, took the central stage’s lectern. The words GENERAL TYCHO CELCHU, GA STARFIGHTER COMMAND (RETIRED) flashed up under his face as he began speaking.

  Daala sighed and cradled her head in her hands. Of course it would be someone like Celchu. He’d worked with Niathal during her final years in office and retired when she had, but he had not dealt with Jacen Solo and was untouched by Solo’s corrosive legacy. He was a good speaker, popular with both enlisted and officer ranks. He would make a speech that would cause the listeners to resent even more bitterly the loss of Niathal. People visiting Niathal’s memorial would have only to touch a button on the marker stone to have the address pop up before them in holographic form, preserved forever.

  Daala sighed. Nothing was going right.

  Nothing was going right.

  NEAR REDGILL LAKE, DATHOMIR

  THE MORNING AFTER THE SPARKFLY ATTACK, THERE WAS A DIFFERENCE in the atmosphere at the clan conclave. Even though he was an outsider, Ben could feel the difference, in part because of his sensitivity to the Force, in part through simple observation.

  Men and women of the two clans were more alert, suspicious. That wasn’t good, because members of each clan were naturally more suspicious of the other. But there was also a new pride in their walks and voices. They’d weathered two Nightsister assaults and were still together, still advancing toward their mutual goal. Ben co
uld see a growing conviction of their inevitable success in their eyes.

  Of course, if he could, so could the Nightsisters. They would be angry at having been driven off, angrier at having lost two of their own. They would retaliate, and soon. If they waited very long, the tribal unification they opposed would take place.

  None of which was Ben’s concern right now. He wanted to catch a murderer. For Sha’s killer was assuredly a Nightsister, and if he could identify her, it could lead him to other Nightsisters.

  That morning, while more athletic events were conducted and funeral rites for the victims of the kodashi viper bites were planned, he wandered the campsite and asked questions. Was Sha among you yesterday? How did she act? What did she say? Do you know who she spoke to before coming to you? Do you know where she went after leaving you?

  He got some answers. She was asking about the children of the Raining Leaves. Asking what, specifically? Just their names and ages.

  Frustrated, at midday he returned to the offworlders’ camp. He was not the first there; Dyon was already on hand, cooking their midday meal. Dyon, turning lizard cutlets wrapped in transparisteel foil atop bare ashes, grinned up at him. “You’re a very dull boy, Ben. You know that, don’t you? There are lots of Force-using girls around here who have still not paired up.”

  “Oh, be quiet.” Ben sat, his back to a large rock. “No, don’t be quiet. Tell me what you know about Tribeless Sha.”

  “Huh.” Dyon frowned, thinking back. “Her name was Sha’natrac Tsu. She was originally of the Blue Coral Divers. But the clan put a death mark on her.”

  “Why?”

  “The Blue Corals had a feud going with the Scissorfists, who were named for a kind of big, lumbering crustacean. The Blue Coral Divers were one of the new breed of clans, women and men ruling jointly, and the Scissorfists were former escaped slaves from a variety of clans and some women who’d joined them. Both clans lived near the sea. It was one of those feuds that went on for years; a handful of clan members on either side were lost every year to ambush, or just disappeared.”

  “Got it. Two clans not smart enough not to kill each other.”

  “That’s basically it. Anyway, in one of those rare fits of sense that the Dathomiri clans sometimes have, the feuding groups had a diplomatic meeting to try to work out their differences, and Sha was part of the party, and she fell in love with a Scissorfist.”

  “Oh, no, not a love story.”

  “And one with a sad ending, too. The peace talks went badly, the two clans went back to warring, and Sha and her mate, who hadn’t made any secret of their relationship, were suddenly traitors because they wouldn’t agree to kill each other. They ran off together and were exiled. They ended up moving to a site not all that far from the spaceport, well out of the hunting ranges of their former clans. This would have been about seven years ago.”

  “So? Tragic ending?”

  “So about five years ago, she starts hiring herself out to patrons at the spaceport, as a guide. She accepts courier jobs, hunting jobs, spying jobs, and seems to prefer the ones that take her farther and farther away from her home grounds, especially if they give her the opportunity to meet clans she hasn’t run into before. When people ask about her husband, she says he’s dead and she’s going to kill whoever killed him. She doesn’t say more than that, though.”

  Ben glared at him. “That’s it? That’s the whole story?”

  “That’s the whole story as far as anybody but Sha knew it, yes.”

  “You really know how to make these epics come alive, Dyon. How is it that you didn’t become a historian?”

  Dyon waved him away. “Don’t be sarcastic to the man cooking your food.”

  “Actually, that’s good advice.” Ben fell silent. Dyon’s story did suggest that perhaps Sha had stumbled across the killer of her husband. Still, the tale raised more questions than it settled. Who had killed her husband, and why? And how would the specific questions she was asking lead her to that person?

  Something nagged at Ben, something Sha had said when they’d first met.

  That was it, words about the Nightsisters. They hide, they heal, they return. If their numbers are few, they come for your children. And she’d looked so sorrowful, but only for an instant.

  Ben stared at Dyon. “That’s it. They took her daughter.”

  “What daughter?”

  “Yes, what daughter?” That was Luke, settling into a cross-legged sitting pose beside the fire.

  “I think Sha had a daughter, and the Nightsisters stole her.” He explained his thinking.

  Luke accepted a mug of caf from Dyon and shook his head. “That’s pretty tenuous, Ben.”

  “I’m trusting my instincts. Yeah, it’s tenuous, but it explains a lot if it’s true. She and her Scissorfist husband are living away from their persecutors but also away from the protection a clan normally offers. They have a baby, everything’s good. Then one night the Nightsisters come. Suddenly her baby’s gone and her husband’s dead. She hires herself out on missions that finance her while she searches for her kid.” Ben looked around, visually scanning the Raining Leaves camp. “And she found something. Maybe one of the Raining Leaves told her, There was a baby like that. But I don’t want to talk out here in the open. Someone might hear. Let’s take a short walk into the Trees of Imminent Doom.”

  Luke frowned. “You’re being awfully flip about a woman’s death.”

  “Sorry. Investigator humor. I heard a lot of it when I was with the Galactic Alliance Guard. Anyway, it would help if I could pin down the dates a little more precisely.”

  “I might be able to help with that.” Dyon went fumbling through his many vest pockets and eventually brought out a scuffed, sturdy-looking datapad. “Luke, can you take over the fire for a few minutes?”

  “Of course.”

  Dyon began tapping commands and queries into his ’pad. “It’s nice to have comm repeaters and satellites. I can access the records at the spaceport. I mean, you’re used to that sort of thing on Coruscant, but here … Um, Sha Tsu and Vagan Kolvy are first recorded as visiting the spaceport seven years, one month ago. The husband has no more visits after five years, ten months back. Five years, eight months ago, Sha lists herself as available for scouting, guiding, hunting activities.”

  Ben thought about it. “So in all probability, they took her baby—”

  Luke shot him an admonishing glance. “Her theoretical baby.”

  “They raided her theoretical campsite, murdered her theoretical husband, and took her theoretical baby just over five years, eight months ago.” He scanned the campsite again. “It would be pretty hard to introduce a new child into a clan like this, wouldn’t it?”

  Dyon snapped his datapad shut. “No, but it would be hard to do it unobtrusively. These people lead a hard, low-calorie existence, so nobody has a pregnancy that goes undetected because of extra weight. There’s some exchanges of members among clans, so it’s possible, say, for you to have a cousin over in the clan next door, and that cousin dies and you adopt her child. But everybody knows that the child originally came from another clan.”

  “Huh.” Ben accepted a piece of foil-wrapped meat from his father and tossed it from hand to hand to keep it from burning his fingers. “After lunch, I think I’m going to start asking new questions.”

  His father grinned. “And when someone asks you to talk to her among the Trees of Imminent Doom?”

  “I say yes, and close my eyes and pucker up for a big kiss?”

  “There, that’s the Skywalker survival instinct at work.”

  Ben was true to his plan. After the midday meal, he wandered the camp again, asking new questions. Is this your child? How old is she? Daughter of one of the Broken Columns, I take it? Does she have any friends her own age?

  It was nightfall before he came across any answers that interested him.

  With a special wrestling event, honoring those that had fallen to the snakes, loud in the distance, Ben stared down at
a little black-haired girl, who stared solemnly back up at him. “This is your daughter?”

  Halliava, winner of the short footrace for those with the Arts and other competitions, gave him a wide smile, a proud smile. “Yes. This is Ara. Ara, this is Ben. He’s from far away, and he’s a boy-Witch. Give him proper greetings.”

  The girl raised a chubby hand, palm toward Ben. “Welcome to our fire. We have bread and meat and water.”

  Halliava’s prompt came as a whisper: “I am called …”

  “I am called Aradasa Vurse.”

  Ben returned the salute. “I am called Ben Skywalker.”

  “Are you really a boy-Witch?”

  He nodded. “But we call ourselves Jedi. Some Jedi are boys and some are girls, and the Arts we know are a little different from yours.”

  “Oh.” Suddenly shy, Ara grabbed and clung to her mother’s thigh, but she did not turn away from Ben.

  Ben gave Halliava a friendly smile. “She’s, what, four?”

  “Five and a season. She’s small for her age.” Halliava shrugged. “You can never tell how fast they’ll grow. I’m tall, and her father was very tall. We used to jest that he was half rancor.”

  “Was tall?”

  “He died before Ara was born. He was a warrior of the Broken Columns. We wed at the annual conclave six or so years ago, and parted at conclave’s end. When next I heard word of him, he had died in a fall, climbing tall trees to plunder nests of their eggs.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged again.

  “I heard the circumstances of her birth were difficult, too.”

  Halliava gave him a little quizzical frown. “Who said that?”

  “I forget. My father was telling stories around a campfire. Before I was born, my mother carried me around from battle to planetary disaster and back again, and one of your Raining Leaves wanted to top that story.”

  “Oh. Well, yes. I was saddened by Dasan’s death and had told no one I was expecting his child. I went on one last long scouting expedition for the clan, knowing that soon after my return I would begin to show … but when I was at the farthest point on my trip from home, I slid into a ravine and broke my leg. I nearly starved, which I think is what has left Ara so small. It was not until after she was born that I was able to return to the Raining Leaves.”