Everyone looked at Miara. She wasn’t in command, either. No one really was, but the charges were her design. If they were going to be set off, she was the one to do it.
“It’ll take me a few moments to get everything ready,” Miara said. “Kolvin, do we have that kind of time?”
“We do if we go now,” he said. His wide black eyes gleamed, even in the dim of the cave.
“I’m coming with you,” Kaeden said.
Miara paused. “You can’t crawl yet,” she said. “And you can’t help with the charges.”
“I don’t want us to be separated,” Kaeden insisted.
“Then let me go so I can come back in a hurry,” Miara said.
“Your sister’s right,” Neera said. “They can kill one of you together as easily as they can apart. You might as well stay here and play crokin with me. It’s your turn anyway.”
Kaeden gaped at her, shocked that even in grief Neera could say something so awful. Miara took advantage of her sister’s distraction and dove into the tunnel with Kolvin on her heels. Time seemed to stretch out forever, but then the ground shook slightly, and Kaeden knew that the sentry point had been taken care of. She wished she’d gotten a look at the approaching figure. She didn’t like not knowing what was coming for them.
Neera tapped her on her injured shoulder, and she winced. The older girl gestured to the board.
“It’s your turn, Kaeden,” she said, as though they were sitting at Selda’s at the end of their shift.
Kaeden picked up a disc and debated her next shot.
Jenneth Pilar was packing. There was no rhyme or reason to the Empire once Force wielders got involved. Every one of his painstaking calculations was ignored and all his formulae were unbalanced by the very presence of such mythology, and he had no more patience for it. The one who called himself the Sixth Brother was back, and that meant that all Jenneth’s well-planned methodologies were about to be jettisoned in favor of some scheme involving a so-called Jedi.
Everyone knew the Jedi were dead. So far from the Core, there were few people who had any faith in the Jedi Order at all. Jenneth didn’t admire much about the Outer Rim, but he could respect that. The Force had no place in an ordered galaxy. It simply couldn’t be accounted for in the math.
He paused, looking around his quarters for anything he might have forgotten. His eyes fell on the datapad he’d used to calculate exactly how much of what the Empire needed could be extracted from the moon’s surface before destroying it for future generations. All that fuss for a plant. Just a simple plant that could be processed into a nutritional supplement that allowed people working in low gravity to process oxygen more efficiently. He couldn’t imagine it was worth the trouble the Empire had gone to in order to procure it.
He threw the datapad into his case and shut the latches. It was hardly his problem. He’d been paid, and he’d seen the job along as far as he could before it got out of his control. There was no reason for the Imperials to think he’d slighted them, and there was no reason for him to stay on the benighted moon a moment longer. He was going back to a planet with real trees, real food, a real bed, and no lingering smell of fertilizer.
In the fields, the farmers labored under duress and the little plants grew taller. A few more days and the harvest could begin.
Chapter 22
IN HER FAVOR, the armored figure hadn’t yet drawn a weapon. They really did want to talk. Ahsoka’s own blaster still hung at her side, but she could get to it if she needed to. It didn’t matter how quickly the figure could draw and fire, Ahsoka would be faster. Her Jedi-trained reflexes were more than sufficient for that. At the same time, she knew that there was no point in a firefight unless she was provoked. The Black Sun agent had come looking for Ashla, so Ashla could deal with them.
“I’m surprised Black Sun has heard of me,” Ahsoka said. She relaxed her shoulders but stayed alert, her eyes scanning the visitor’s armor for weaknesses and her feelings seeking out the surge of aggression that would precipitate a fight.
“My organization keeps watch on this whole sector,” the agent said. The voice modulator made the words difficult to understand. It must be an old machine. Either this agent was new and couldn’t afford good tech yet, or they were seasoned and had had their gear for a while. “We tend to notice when our business ventures go awry.”
Business ventures was not the term Ahsoka would have used. She considered all forms of sentient-being trafficking abhorrent. She absently calculated how long it would take to get her ship in the air from her starting position at the bottom of the ramp. The freighter wasn’t designed for quick takeoffs, but you could generally push a ship to do anything once, and this might be her one time.
“Well,” she said. “I don’t know much about that sort of thing. I’m just a hired pilot.”
“My organization is aware of that, too,” the agent said. “You’re much better than those petty Fardi scum. Whatever they’re paying you, we’ll double it.”
“You’re offering me a job.” Ahsoka’s voice was flat.
“We are,” the agent said. “Lucrative contracts, and all the benefits that come with working for such a high-level organization.”
Ahsoka almost wished the agent had come in firing.
“I had a certain amount of freedom with the Fardis,” she said. “I doubt your employers would continue to let me be so independent.”
“There are some limitations they would expect you to accept,” the agent conceded. They shifted, and Ahsoka saw that the knee plating on their armor was cracked. That would be her first target, if it came to that. “And there’s also the matter of the credits you owe them.”
“I don’t owe anyone anything,” Ahsoka said.
“Oh, but you do,” the agent said. “You’ve cost Black Sun thousands of credits, and you’ll pay them back one way or another.”
“This is sounding less and less like a job,” Ahsoka said.
“Your corpse is also acceptable,” the agent said.
“Do I get some time to think about it?” Ahsoka asked.
“Not long,” the agent said. “There will be others searching for you. I’m lucky I found you first.”
If Black Sun wanted a smuggler they felt had snubbed them badly enough to send out bounty hunters, then a suspected Jedi would be an even better target. She couldn’t reveal herself to this agent any more than she could have to the Imperials back on Thabeska. It would mean more people chasing her, and while she knew that she could handle them, she had others to consider. Wherever she set down next would become a target, just by virtue of her presence. She had to be careful.
“I’m very flattered,” she said. “But I don’t think I’m interested.”
To their credit, the Black Sun agent didn’t hesitate, but they were still too slow. Ahsoka was halfway up the ramp of her ship before the first salvo of blaster shots sounded and closing the door before the second round. The agent could have charged the ramp but chose instead to retreat back to their own ship. It seemed they now had fewer qualms about shooting her and were going to try to take her in the air.
There was good reason for this. The freighter was bulky and hadn’t been designed for speed. The agent’s vessel was sleek and vicious, a predator in ship’s clothing. Ahsoka was going to have her work cut out for her. She started the takeoff sequence before she even had the hatch shut. As soon as she was airborne, she turned around. Looking down, she saw the agent running up the ramp of their own vessel. The ship’s guns were powerful but would fire slowly. All she had to do was avoid a direct hit.