Read Online Aftermath: Star Wars by Chuck Wendig - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Chuck Wendig
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yes.
Then: someone she doesn’t know, someone in an absurd piece of headwear (if Jas had to describe the hat, she would suggest it looked like someone had killed an emerald kofta-grouse and stuck it on his head) with the lush, plush, purple robes of an old Imperial adviser.
Out of the next shuttle comes someone she recognizes instantly: Jylia Shale. An old woman, shrunken up like a gallstone and with all the hardness of an uncracked koja nut. Shoulders forward, hands clasped behind her back, Shale wears the crisp Imperial-gray uniform, her hair done up in an austere bun atop her head. She comes with a pair of red-helmeted, red-cloaked Imperial Guards. Part of Palpatine’s own royal protection.
And then, from the final shuttle.
Moff Valco Pandion.
Stiff, hatchet-chinned, a scar running across his brow, the kind of scar that looks like it has a story behind it.
And there, on his chest, a curious emblem: a rectangular one, with six blue squares in the top row, and three red and three yellow below it.
That, the emblem not of moff, but rather: grand moff.
A title assigned, or a title claimed and taken?
There, on that platform, stand three significant targets. Crassus is the intended target, but Shale? Pandion? Better payouts. Pandion in particular is the highest number in the Pazaak card deck handed out by her contact within the New Republic: The higher the number of the card, the more valuable the target. And there are three of those targets.
Butterflies turn inside her stomach.
Kill Pandion.
The New Republic will want them alive but will still pay quite a bit for their corpses. As long as they aren’t disintegrated, of course—handing in a jar of greasy ash isn’t a good way to get paid. She always intended to kill Crassus. Better a man like that be put in the ground than be thrown in a cell. Penance for his crimes.
On the landing deck, Pandion joins the others, though he remains a step or two back: distant, haughty, purposefully separate. The others are having a conversation. Introductions, perhaps, or reintroductions.
Jas plays this out in her head. She takes off the blinders, tries to think beyond the moment, beyond the pulling of a trigger.
Killing Pandion, or any of them, is an option.
A single shot, and one is down. With it: a significant payday.
The others will scatter. Back to the shuttles or in through the palace door. If they go back to the palace, then maybe,
maybe
she will have a shot at taking out or capturing the others. But if they return to the skies? Then that chance will be gone.
A wind blows. A warm wind, even up here. Like the breath of a beast. Hissing past the thorny spikes rising off the top of her head.
That could work.
Let them go. Get one target.
But there exists a larger play. All of them together. A coup, for her. Jas had a name with the Empire. A name, too, among many of the crime syndicates here at the Outer Rim—with the Hutts, Black Sun, the Crymorah, the Perlemian Cartel. But with the destruction of the Death Star (
again
), and with the switching of her own allegiance, her name and her reputation are in flux—as is so much of the galaxy. If she’s going to earn her keep, that means taking bigger risks. Playing it safe—slow and steady—is not an option. She reaches the decision and puts away the rifle.
One target is not enough.
She has to take them all.
And I have to do it right now.
—
Turbulence as the shuttle enters Akiva’s atmosphere. Sloane sits in the navigator’s chair—a non-essential role given the short distance they’re flying, though she could fill it capably if needed—and watches the darkness of space give way to the washed-out light of the planet below. Clouds brush past the glass, and the heads-up display designates the horizon line, their trajectory, their plotted course.
Next to her, her pilot—Morna Kee. Been her pilot for some time now. A capable pilot. A loyal Imperial. A
faithful
Imperial. It’s nice to have people around whose
Then: someone she doesn’t know, someone in an absurd piece of headwear (if Jas had to describe the hat, she would suggest it looked like someone had killed an emerald kofta-grouse and stuck it on his head) with the lush, plush, purple robes of an old Imperial adviser.
Out of the next shuttle comes someone she recognizes instantly: Jylia Shale. An old woman, shrunken up like a gallstone and with all the hardness of an uncracked koja nut. Shoulders forward, hands clasped behind her back, Shale wears the crisp Imperial-gray uniform, her hair done up in an austere bun atop her head. She comes with a pair of red-helmeted, red-cloaked Imperial Guards. Part of Palpatine’s own royal protection.
And then, from the final shuttle.
Moff Valco Pandion.
Stiff, hatchet-chinned, a scar running across his brow, the kind of scar that looks like it has a story behind it.
And there, on his chest, a curious emblem: a rectangular one, with six blue squares in the top row, and three red and three yellow below it.
That, the emblem not of moff, but rather: grand moff.
A title assigned, or a title claimed and taken?
There, on that platform, stand three significant targets. Crassus is the intended target, but Shale? Pandion? Better payouts. Pandion in particular is the highest number in the Pazaak card deck handed out by her contact within the New Republic: The higher the number of the card, the more valuable the target. And there are three of those targets.
Butterflies turn inside her stomach.
Kill Pandion.
The New Republic will want them alive but will still pay quite a bit for their corpses. As long as they aren’t disintegrated, of course—handing in a jar of greasy ash isn’t a good way to get paid. She always intended to kill Crassus. Better a man like that be put in the ground than be thrown in a cell. Penance for his crimes.
On the landing deck, Pandion joins the others, though he remains a step or two back: distant, haughty, purposefully separate. The others are having a conversation. Introductions, perhaps, or reintroductions.
Jas plays this out in her head. She takes off the blinders, tries to think beyond the moment, beyond the pulling of a trigger.
Killing Pandion, or any of them, is an option.
A single shot, and one is down. With it: a significant payday.
The others will scatter. Back to the shuttles or in through the palace door. If they go back to the palace, then maybe,
maybe
she will have a shot at taking out or capturing the others. But if they return to the skies? Then that chance will be gone.
A wind blows. A warm wind, even up here. Like the breath of a beast. Hissing past the thorny spikes rising off the top of her head.
That could work.
Let them go. Get one target.
But there exists a larger play. All of them together. A coup, for her. Jas had a name with the Empire. A name, too, among many of the crime syndicates here at the Outer Rim—with the Hutts, Black Sun, the Crymorah, the Perlemian Cartel. But with the destruction of the Death Star (
again
), and with the switching of her own allegiance, her name and her reputation are in flux—as is so much of the galaxy. If she’s going to earn her keep, that means taking bigger risks. Playing it safe—slow and steady—is not an option. She reaches the decision and puts away the rifle.
One target is not enough.
She has to take them all.
And I have to do it right now.
—
Turbulence as the shuttle enters Akiva’s atmosphere. Sloane sits in the navigator’s chair—a non-essential role given the short distance they’re flying, though she could fill it capably if needed—and watches the darkness of space give way to the washed-out light of the planet below. Clouds brush past the glass, and the heads-up display designates the horizon line, their trajectory, their plotted course.
Next to her, her pilot—Morna Kee. Been her pilot for some time now. A capable pilot. A loyal Imperial. A
faithful
Imperial. It’s nice to have people around whose
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