Deceived Read online

  THE FIGHTER PULLED Vrath through the throat of the cruiser’s landing bay until they reached an isolated landing pad where two dozen troopers in full gray battle armor awaited him, along with a tall, redheaded naval officer. He nodded at them through the canopy, unstrapped from the chair, disarmed himself of both his blaster and his knives, and headed out.

  By the time Razor’s landing ramp clanged off the metal deck of the cruiser, he was staring at the dead eyes of fourteen TH-17 blaster rifles.

  “Secure him,” the naval officer said.

  Two of the armored troopers shouldered their weapons and rushed him. He did not resist as one put flex binders on his wrists and the other patted him down.

  “He is unarmed,” the one said, his voice the modulated mechanical sound of the helmet’s speaker.

  “Search the ship,” the naval officer said. “I want to see his flight records.”

  “Yes, sir,” responded the troopers, and seven of them boarded the ship to search.

  “There is nothing of interest aboard,” Vrath said. “I came from Vulta. That’s as far back as the records go.”

  The naval officer smiled, a tight, false gesture, and walked up to Vrath. His unwrinkled uniform smelled freshly cleaned. The freckles on his pale face looked like a pox.

  Vrath could have killed him with a high kick to the trachea, but he thought it unwise.

  “I am Commander Jard, first officer of the Imperial cruiser Valor. You are under arrest for flying in restricted space. Whether your punishment is execution or mere imprisonment is entirely at my discretion and depends upon how satisfied I am with the answers you provide to my questions.”

  “I understand.”

  “What is your name? Where did you come from?”

  He barely remembered the name his mother had given him. He offered the one his profession had most recently given him. “Vrath Xizor. As I said, I flew here directly from Vulta.”

  “What brought you here, Vrath Xizor?”

  “I have information of interest to the OIC.”

  The naval officer cocked his head. “Are you military, Vrath Xizor?”

  “Former. Special detachment from the Four Hundred and Third. Company E.”

  “An Imperial sniper?”

  Vrath was impressed that Jard knew his unit designation. He nodded.

  “Well, Vrath Xizor of the Four Hundred Third, you may tell me your information.”

  “I would prefer to speak directly to the captain.”

  “Darth Malgus will not—”

  “Darth? The commander is a Sith?”

  Jard looked hard at Vrath.

  “He will want to hear what I have to say,” Vrath said. “It concerns the Jedi.”

  Jard studied his face. “Put him in the brig,” he said to another soldier standing behind Vrath. “If Darth Malgus wishes to speak to you, he will do so. If he does not, then he does not.”

  “You’re making a mistake—”

  “Shut up,” one of the troopers said, and cuffed him in the back of the head.

  Three troopers escorted Vrath out of the landing bay and into a nearby lift. Vrath did not resist. It had been years since he’d been aboard an Imperial ship, and they remained exactly as he remembered—antiseptic, purely functional killing machines.

  Just like him.

  “This one was a sniper detached from the Four Hundred Third,” said one of the troopers to another.

  “Or so he says.”

  “That true?” said another. “I heard things about that unit.”

  Vrath said nothing, merely stared into the tinted slit of the trooper’s helmet visor.

  “Some kind of supermen is what I heard.”

  The trooper holding his shoulder gave him a shake. “This one don’t look like much.”

  Vrath only smiled. He didn’t look like much—deliberately so.

  The soldiers trekked him deeper into the bowels of the ship. The corridors narrowed, and blue-uniformed security personal started to appear at doors that answered only to certain keycodes. Vrath had been in Imperial brigs many times, usually for insubordination.

  Before they reached the bridge one of the troopers—the one with a sergeant’s symbol on his shoulder plate—held up a hand for the others to stop. He cocked his head to the side as he listened to something over his helmet’s speaker. He glanced at Vrath as he listened.

  “Confirmed,” he said to whomever he was speaking. Then, to his men, “Darth Malgus wants him on the bridge.”

  The three men shared a look and reversed course.

  “Lucky you, Four Hundred Third,” said the trooper holding him.

  Exploding into motion, Vrath drove a kick into the chest plate of the trooper in front of him, sending him flying into the sergeant and knocking both of them hard against the wall. Then he spun behind the third while slipping his bound arms over the trooper’s head. He maneuvered the binders under the neck ring of the helmet and squeezed, not enough to kill, just enough to make a point.

  The man’s gags sounded loud in his helmet speaker. His fingers clawed at Vrath’s arms. He was probably starting to see spots.

  Vrath released him and shoved him away. The entire exchange had taken perhaps four seconds. The two men he’d knocked against the wall had their rifles aimed at his head.

  Vrath held out his arms for them to take. “Don’t look like much,” he said.

  FATMAN CAME OUT of hyperspace in the Kravos system. Zeerid immediately engaged the ion engines and flew the freighter into the system’s soup.

  Debris from a partially dispersed accretion disk around the system’s star filled the black with ionized gas and debris. Some fluke of solar system evolution had resulted in an orange gas giant forming a few hundred thousand kilos outside the far border of the disk.

  Zeerid wheeled Fatman through the swirl, deftly dodging asteroids and smaller particles. He maneuvered the ship to the end of the disk and maintained his position, though it taxed his piloting skill.

  “Now what?” Aryn asked.

  “We wait. And when an Imperial convoy heading to Coruscant comes through, we roll the dice.”

  “How will we know it’s heading for Coruscant?”

  “We won’t know, strictly speaking. But Imperial Navy regs call for a convoy heading to an occupied world to have an escort of at least three frigates. If we see that, it’s probably heading to Coruscant.”

  “And if we don’t see that?”

  Zeerid preferred not to think about it. “We will.”

  “What if you’re wrong? What if the convoy isn’t heading to Coruscant?”

  “Then it’ll jump where it’s jumping and we’ll jump to Coruscant, bare naked and within range of an Imperial fleet. You’re not the modest sort, are you?”

  He tried to convey with his grin a confidence he did not feel.

  She only shook her head and stared out at the gas giant.

  They waited. A medical transport came through and Zeerid ignored it. A single cruiser came through later and still they waited. After several hours, Zeerid’s instruments showed another hyperspace distortion.

  A convoy appeared, three supply superfreighters and four frigates bristling with weapons.

  “That’s our ride,” he said. “You ready?”

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  THE LIFT DOORS OPENED to reveal a short corridor that led to the double doors of the cruiser’s bridge. A pair of armored soldiers stood near the lift, awaiting Vrath’s arrival. Two more stood down the corridor before the bridge doors.

  The three troopers who had escorted Vrath to the lift handed him off to those in the hall.

  “He’s dangerous,” the sergeant said. “Watch him.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the two troopers in the corridor, their expressions unreadable behind their helmets. They flanked Vrath but did not touch him as they led him to the bridge. The double doors opened to reveal the dimly lit, multi-leveled oval chamber of the cruiser’s bridge.

  A score of naval of
ficers—all human—sat at their posts, hovered over their compscreens. A huge viewscreen to the left provided a magnified view of Coruscant and the surrounding space. The hum of low, curt conversation and the thrum of electronics filled the air.

  A swivel-mounted command chair sat on the center of the bridge on a raised platform. Commander Jard stood beside it, one hand on its armrest, conferring with the man who sat in it. Jard glanced at Vrath and spoke to the man, whom Vrath assumed to be Darth Malgus. He activated his audial implant to hear the exchange.

  “My lord,” Jard said. “The prisoner I spoke of is here.”

  Malgus turned his eyes to Vrath and whatever smugness Vrath had felt over showing up some troopers sank under the weight of that gaze. Malgus rose and strode across the bridge toward Vrath. He stood well over two meters, and the black cape he wore looked like a pavilion tent.

  He never took his eyes from Vrath’s face as he approached. Scars lined his face, and a network of blue veins made a patchwork of his bald pate. He was so pale he could have been a corpse, the walking dead. The small respirator he wore hid his mouth and lips. But it was his eyes that cowed Vrath. Malgus was all eyes. The sum of him, of his power, radiated outward from his bloodshot gaze.

  He dismissed the guards who flanked Vrath and, with a gesture, used the Force to pry open the binders on Vrath’s wrists. They fell to the floor of the bridge with a dull clang.

  “You mentioned a Jedi to Commander Jard.” His voice, deep and rough, sounded like stones grinding together.

  “I did … my lord.” Malgus’s mere presence pulled the last words out of him.

  “Explain.”

  Vrath found it more difficult than he would have imagined to compose his thoughts. “A freighter is en route to Coruscant. A Jedi is aboard.”

  “Just one?”

  “As far as I know just one, yes,” Vrath said, nodding. “A woman. Human, mid-thirties, I’d say. Long, light brown hair. She is flying with a man named Zeerid Korr. As far as I know, they are the only crew.”

  “How do you know this woman is a Jedi?”

  Vrath was starting to feel cold. He had to work to keep his voice steady. “I saw her using a green lightsaber. I saw her do things with the Force.” He held up his hands to show Malgus his wrists, still red from the binders Malgus had unlocked. “Things like this.”

  Malgus eased half a step closer to Vrath and Vrath felt decidedly overwhelmed. “Tell me then, Vrath Xizor, what else is aboard this ship and why and when it is coming to Coruscant?”

  Vrath bumped up against the doors behind him. He considered lying but did not think he could pull it off.

  “Engspice, my lord. The ship is carrying engspice.”

  He saw connections being made, conclusions being drawn, and more questions forming in the deep wells of Malgus’s eyes.

  “This Zeerid Korr is a spicerunner?”

  “He is.”

  “Why would a Jedi associate with a spicerunner, Vrath Xizor?”

  “I … don’t know, my lord.”

  “And you?” Malgus loomed over him, all dark eyes, all dark armor, all dark power. “Are you a spicerunner? A business rival, maybe?”

  The lie exited his mouth before wisdom could stop it. “No, no, I am a former Imperial. A sniper. I’m … I’m just doing my part for the Empire, my lord.”

  Malgus inhaled deeply, exhaled, the mechanical sound heavy with disappointment. “You are a poor liar. You are a rival spicerunner, or a killer in service to one of the syndicates that runs spice.”

  Vrath dared not deny it. He stood there, frozen, pinioned by Malgus’s eyes.

  “When is this freighter due to arrive?” Malgus asked. “And how do they plan to get through the blockade?”

  Vrath found his mouth was dry. He cleared his throat. “They are coming soon. Today. They must.”

  “Because of the engspice?”

  Vrath could not meet Malgus’s eyes. “Yes. I don’t know how they intend to get through, but I know they will try.”

  Malgus stared at him for a long second that felt like an eternity to Vrath.

  “You will remain on the bridge, Vrath Xizor. If this freighter and the Jedi it carries show up, I will overlook your illegal flight into restricted space. Perhaps I will even compensate you for your service. But if the ship doesn’t show then I will devise a … suitable punishment for a spicerunner found in restricted space. Does that seem to you unreasonable?”

  Vrath choked on his response. “No, my lord.”

  “Excellent.”

  Malgus turned from Vrath and Vrath felt as though the air had become easier to breathe. Malgus took a seat in his command chair and spoke to Commander Jard.

  “Commander, intensify all scanning until further notice. Any unusual readings are to be reported to me. And dispatch a squad of fighters to put eyes on all incoming ships.”

  “Most of the fighter fleet is otherwise assigned, my lord.”

  “Use shuttles then.”

  “Yes, my lord,” answered Jard.

  Vrath stared at the cruiser’s viewscreen, hoping that Zeerid had not scratched the run for some reason. Or just as bad, that Zeerid had somehow beaten him to Coruscant and already snuck through the blockade.

  He had never before felt so vulnerable.

  “WE HAVE TO JUMP right on their heels, Aryn.”

  Aryn did not bother to respond. She dwelled in the Force, floated in and on the warm network of lines that connected all things, one to another. Her consciousness expanded to see and feel everything near her. She focused on her perception of the passage of time, first on how it felt as she moved through it, then on spreading it, stretching it, until she could linger in a millisecond as if it were a moment, then a minute. To Zeerid it would appear that she were a blur of motion, existing simultaneously in multiple places. To her, it felt as if the universe around her had stilled. She smiled, seeing the moments that hung before her, each millisecond a long moment in which she could think, in which she could act. The effort taxed her, and she knew she could not maintain it for long.

  “Watch the scanner,” Zeerid said, his words a lifetime in the utterance.

  She did not watch the scanner. Her body could respond faster than any machine. Instead she watched the viewscreen. The Imperial ships had finished their hydrogen skim and now maneuvered into a formation suitable for a hyperspace jump, the supply ships within the ring of the frigate escort.

  She tensed.

  “They’re forming up,” Zeerid said. The waves of his tension crashed against her but she dammed them off, did not allow them to disrupt her focus.

  She watched, waited, waited …

  As one, the Imperial ships began to stretch in her perception. For a nanosecond, all of them seemed to stretch to infinity, their rear engines a hundred thousand kilometers off Fatman’s bow, their forms reaching across and through an incomprehensible distance. She knew it was illusion, that is was a trick of her perception caused by the moment they entered hyperspace seeming to freeze before her eyes.

  She engaged Fatman’s hyperdrive and the black night of space turned blue.

  “Now, Aryn! Now!” Zeerid said, but he was far too late.

  They were already gone.

  She remained immersed in the Force as Fatman surged through hyperspace. The ordinary maddening churn slowed to a crawl of spirals and whorls, the script of the universe writ large in characters of blue, turquoise, midnight, and lavender. She fancied there might be meaning in the lines, an important revelation that hung before her, just beyond the reach of her consciousness.

  She lost track of the slow passage of time. Zeerid spoke to her from time to time but his words bounced off her perception, ricocheted without her comprehension. In time, something he said penetrated her understanding.

  “Coming out, Aryn. Be ready.”

  She watched Zeerid, moving in slow motion, pull back on the lever that engaged the hyperdrive.

  She readied herself, and the moment the blue of hyperspace start
ed to fade into black, she pushed a series of buttons and switches that turned Fatman cold except for life support, thrusters, and the small amount of power they’d need to create an electromagnetic bond.

  The blue disappeared in favor of the midnight of space, and she returned to normal perception.

  “Engaging thrusters,” Zeerid said. “Well done, Aryn.”

  Sweat soaked her robes, pasted them to her body. She felt as if she had not slept in days.

  “Now it gets fun,” Zeerid said.

  The trailing freighter in the convoy, five times the size of Fatman, flew right before them. They had jumped out within the ring of frigates and gone cold so fast the frigates would not have perceived their arrival. They were directly under one of the freighters, a kilometer beneath its underside, maybe less.

  In the distance, the metal-and-duracrete sphere of Coruscant floated in space. The rest of the convoy spread out before them. The trailing freighter’s ion engines fired, and it started to head out.

  “Not so fast,” Zeerid said.

  He punched the thrusters and Fatman lurched toward the freighter until its underside filled their field of vision. It started to pull away.

  Zeerid hit the thrusters again.

  “There it is,” he said, closing on the freighter’s cargo bay. His hands flew over the instrument panel, using one thruster then another to angle the ship, finally flipping Fatman over so that her flat ventral side faced a flat spot on the Imperial freighter. As they closed, Zeerid flipped a switch, using Fatman’s deflector array to form an electromagnetic field. He killed the thrusters and they coasted in.

  “Brace,” he said.

  Fatman closed a few hundred meters more and then the electromagnetic field did the rest, pulling them tight against the Imperial ship. Aryn felt barely a lurch.

  “As soft as a kiss,” Zeerid said, and eased back in his seat. He looked over at Aryn, all grins, seemingly unsurprised by his success. “Let’s take a ride.”

  MALGUS FELT A FLASH of discomfort, the irritating needle stab of a light-side user, the feeling oddly similar to that which he had felt when he’d fought Master Zallow in the Temple. The feeling lasted barely an instant and disappeared, leaving only a sensory ghost in its wake.