Read Online Aftermath: Star Wars by Chuck Wendig - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Chuck Wendig
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such an unstable position as this, hanging a hundred or so meters up in the air, staring out over the sprawling city.) She presses her eye to the scope.
There, the yacht. The scope gives her critical data—the heat coming off the back of it, the ship’s speed and trajectory, any biological signatures (those are presently nil given the yacht’s shielding).
She points the weapon toward the raised landing platform atop the satrap’s palace—the home of Satrap Isstra Dirus, a venal governor known for caring very little about the people of his city and very much about how fat his pockets have become with other people’s credits.
In a perfect galaxy, he would be a target, too.
But Jas Emari is a professional. No collateral damage. Whether it’s justified or not.
Through the scope she sees it:
The yacht, easing in for a landing. Steam burns off in ghostly plumes. It lands, rocking softly as it does. A gangplank descends. The satrap emerges: a tall man, handsome once, though even through the scope she can see the lines etching into his stony face like water carving channels into a mountain. He’s all smiles and gentle applause. Bowing and scraping because he knows which side of his muftari bread is spiced and salted; Jas has seen his records, seen how the flow of credits stems from various Imperial corporations and trickles into his limitless coffers. The planets of the Outer Rim are a very good place to hide money and procure illicit goods (slaves included), and Akiva is just such a world. Behind the satrap: two of his guards. Tall helmets with red plumage. Each with vibro-pikes taller than those helmets, their blade tips pointed skyward.
Crassus steps down off the plank, attended to by his own guard: women in hardened-lacquer animal masks. Slaves, too, most likely.
The man himself makes no small target—he’s big and round, with a beard dyed the color of deepest space, a glittering robe trailing behind him like a peacock with its tail in the dirt. He claps his hands and then takes both of them and clutches the wrists of the satrap.
They laugh.
Ha, ha, ha.
Time to end your mirth, Arsin Crassus.
But then her scope flashes—
Incoming ships.
Jas pivots the rifle, following the arrows inside the scope’s display—and there she sees an Imperial shuttle,
Lambda
-class, descending through the spiraling cloud cover. A second and third arrow blip.
Two more shuttles.
And with them, TIE fighters.
She swings the rifle back to the platform. Crassus is still there (she hisses panicked breath through her teeth, glad to have not missed her opportunity thanks to a distraction), now standing elbow-to-elbow with the satrap. His own guards have lined up, waiting. Crassus has taken off his robe and one of his guards is now cooling him off with an unfolded fan.
Then, walking in from the rooftop door: three stormtroopers.
Curious.
Take the shot,
she thinks.
Earn the credits.
But—
But.
Something’s happening. Her intel didn’t detail any of this, and now she curses herself for falling into a familiar trap. She operates too often with blinders on. She sees the target and makes a beeline for it—and sometimes, when she does that, she misses things. A bigger picture. Unseen enemies.
Complications.
The view of the scope is all the view she needs, or so she believes until reality proves otherwise. She’s been hunting Arsin Crassus now for a month, following his self-important vapor trail as he flits about the galaxy like a scared thatch-sparrow, and when she heard of the meeting between him and Satrap Dirus, she looked no farther.
Turns out, she should have.
Her finger hesitates, and one by one, the shuttles begin to land.
The shuttles, alighting in a half circle, begin to open up.
Their guests begin to spill out.
And with it, her breath catches in her chest. She feels like someone who has dug a hole in their backyard only to find a trunk full of Old Republic dataries—a box of unexpected treasure.
Arsin Crassus,
There, the yacht. The scope gives her critical data—the heat coming off the back of it, the ship’s speed and trajectory, any biological signatures (those are presently nil given the yacht’s shielding).
She points the weapon toward the raised landing platform atop the satrap’s palace—the home of Satrap Isstra Dirus, a venal governor known for caring very little about the people of his city and very much about how fat his pockets have become with other people’s credits.
In a perfect galaxy, he would be a target, too.
But Jas Emari is a professional. No collateral damage. Whether it’s justified or not.
Through the scope she sees it:
The yacht, easing in for a landing. Steam burns off in ghostly plumes. It lands, rocking softly as it does. A gangplank descends. The satrap emerges: a tall man, handsome once, though even through the scope she can see the lines etching into his stony face like water carving channels into a mountain. He’s all smiles and gentle applause. Bowing and scraping because he knows which side of his muftari bread is spiced and salted; Jas has seen his records, seen how the flow of credits stems from various Imperial corporations and trickles into his limitless coffers. The planets of the Outer Rim are a very good place to hide money and procure illicit goods (slaves included), and Akiva is just such a world. Behind the satrap: two of his guards. Tall helmets with red plumage. Each with vibro-pikes taller than those helmets, their blade tips pointed skyward.
Crassus steps down off the plank, attended to by his own guard: women in hardened-lacquer animal masks. Slaves, too, most likely.
The man himself makes no small target—he’s big and round, with a beard dyed the color of deepest space, a glittering robe trailing behind him like a peacock with its tail in the dirt. He claps his hands and then takes both of them and clutches the wrists of the satrap.
They laugh.
Ha, ha, ha.
Time to end your mirth, Arsin Crassus.
But then her scope flashes—
Incoming ships.
Jas pivots the rifle, following the arrows inside the scope’s display—and there she sees an Imperial shuttle,
Lambda
-class, descending through the spiraling cloud cover. A second and third arrow blip.
Two more shuttles.
And with them, TIE fighters.
She swings the rifle back to the platform. Crassus is still there (she hisses panicked breath through her teeth, glad to have not missed her opportunity thanks to a distraction), now standing elbow-to-elbow with the satrap. His own guards have lined up, waiting. Crassus has taken off his robe and one of his guards is now cooling him off with an unfolded fan.
Then, walking in from the rooftop door: three stormtroopers.
Curious.
Take the shot,
she thinks.
Earn the credits.
But—
But.
Something’s happening. Her intel didn’t detail any of this, and now she curses herself for falling into a familiar trap. She operates too often with blinders on. She sees the target and makes a beeline for it—and sometimes, when she does that, she misses things. A bigger picture. Unseen enemies.
Complications.
The view of the scope is all the view she needs, or so she believes until reality proves otherwise. She’s been hunting Arsin Crassus now for a month, following his self-important vapor trail as he flits about the galaxy like a scared thatch-sparrow, and when she heard of the meeting between him and Satrap Dirus, she looked no farther.
Turns out, she should have.
Her finger hesitates, and one by one, the shuttles begin to land.
The shuttles, alighting in a half circle, begin to open up.
Their guests begin to spill out.
And with it, her breath catches in her chest. She feels like someone who has dug a hole in their backyard only to find a trunk full of Old Republic dataries—a box of unexpected treasure.
Arsin Crassus,
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