Aftermath: Star Wars by Chuck Wendig Read Free Book Online

frozen, reaching for his own blaster—stuck in a leather holster bolted to the underside of a nearby table.
    “Do not pick that up,” Makarial whispers.
    Temmin calculates his odds.
    They’re not good.
    He withdraws his hand. Smiles. Nods. “Sure, sure.”
    “Tell your
droid
to back off.”
    “Now, hold on—”
    “Tell him.”
    Temmin grins. “Which droid are we talking about here?”
    Makarial’s pale, ghostly eyes focus, then narrow in bewilderment—just as the interrogator droid floats up behind her, a syringe fixed to the end of its second extensor arm. Temmin chuckles.
    The floating droid stabs down with the needle. A needle filled with a toxic narcotic—locally sourced, locally brewed, and with enough stopping power to put a Gamorrean to sleep for the better part of a week.
    The needle snaps off, and clicks as it hits the ground. Never actually
delivering
its toxic payload.
    Right, right. Temmin thinks, with no small disappointment:
The Koorivar have really hard skin, don’t they?
    Temmin runs. He leaps up over a table, then to another table, then across a trio of metal stools—blaster fire sizzles in the air behind him, knocking junk off shelves. An oil can hops off the corner of a table ahead of him. Temmin yells as he bolts for the door—
    There. Ahead. The door is open. Someone is standing there.
    Someone new. Long dark cloak.
    Someone with a blaster all his own.
    The new figure raises the blaster. Temmin drops his weight, letting his leg skid out from under him—laserfire trades above his head, and somewhere behind him Makarial yelps in pain. There comes a crash.
    Temmin leaps to his feet, presses himself flat against the textured wall of his junk shop. Makarial’s down, writhing and howling. Mister Bones has lifted his head like a curious, startled hound. The new visitor regards the situation, then peels back his hood.
    It’s not a him at all. It’s a
her.
    Temmin’s eyes go wide.
    “Mom?”

“Admiral Sloane, the shuttle is ready.”
    She stands. Hands behind her back. Staring down a long hallway. At the end of the hallway: a vent cut free with a micro-torch. Ahead of her, stormtroopers go in and out of doors—cabins, sleeping quarters. No sign of the interloper anywhere. She bites down on her teeth to suppress anger.
    Lieutenant Tothwin says again: “Admiral, I said—”
    “I heard what you said,” she snaps.
    “The others. They’re already heading to the planet’s surface.”
    “Everyone is accounted for, then.”
    “Yes. Pandion. Shale. Arsin Crassus’s yacht showed up on screen a short while ago and is now descending to Akiva.”
    “And Yupe Tashu?”
    “Adviser Tashu’s shuttle is on screen as well. We directed him to continue on toward the meeting site. They’re expecting you to be there ahead of them—”
    “They can wait.”
    “Of course. It’s just that—Moff Pandion is already—”
    “Tell me,” she says. “This deck. Nothing of import here, is there?”
    “Admiral?” he asks, not understanding her.
    She wheels on him, impatient. “I mean, this is just empty guest rooms here, and at the other end, kitchens, sanitation, a game room.” Sloane chews on that. Could he be using the sanitation shoot? The stormtroopers have already checked it out, and didn’t find anything.
    “Perhaps he thought to steal a bit of food—”
    “No,”
she says, suddenly figuring it out. “It’s a ruse. It’s always a ruse with the rebels, isn’t it? Always some trick, some game. He didn’t stop here, he just wants us to think he did so we waste time. That ventilation shaft. Where does it go? Show me the schematic.”
    Tothwin fumbles with the holodisk, snaps it on. There, the schematic for the
Vigilance.
She scrolls through it, moving the image about, highlighting the shaft and following it to its logical conclusion—
    Oh, no.
    She growls: “I know where he’s going.”
    Or where he’s already gone.
    Damnit!
    —
    His leg isn’t broken, he doesn’t think. But