They jumped into the shadow of the Hutt world of Sleheyron and it hung in the sky before them like a giant bruise; mottled browns, greens, and yellows with the occasional bright spots scattered across the planet's surface. The twins were standing at the rear of the expansive cockpit as the pilots went about preparing for the final approach. One small, fuzzy diplomat worked at a computer screen while the other nervously paced.
"He's checked his comlink every minute since we've been in-system," Zack told Cody in a low voice. "He's waiting for something."
Cody expanded his senses but felt nothing but the crew's nervousness. "Rajac was right. In his line of work you know what to expect."
"That's why this cloak and dagger keep-the-kids-in-the-dark stuff doesn't sit well with me."
"If we needed to know, I'm sure they'd tell us," Cody argued.
"They should, but they probably wouldn't."
"That's just how it works."
"Doesn't mean it's right. If things go wrong, who's going to be the ones to get us out of there in as few pieces as possible? It's certainly not them." Zack considered the two ambassadors in front of him. "The older one with the comlink addiction? He will be absolutely useless in a fight. The other one, whatever species she is, will be equally worthless. And that leaves us."
"That's why we're here. They're diplomats, Zack, their job is to talk, not to fight."
"No, there's more to all this than just that. It's so strong I can almost taste it."
"I don't feel anything out of the ordinary."
"It's there. Trust me. Don't let your attention drop for a second."
"I hope you boys got your naps in while we were in hyperspace," the human, Chelko, told them. "Because it's almost time to get to work." He brushed past the twins and disappeared into the aft of the ship.
Cody felt Zack bristle as the man passed and nearly put a restraining hand on his brother's shoulder. The small, furry creature tried to smile sympathetically as she followed the man out of the cockpit.
"And his attitude isn't helping anything, either," Zack complained once they were out of earshot. "He hasn't said a single thing that hasn't been either condescending or smart-mouthed since we left the Event Horizon."
"He might not want us here. Or maybe doesn't think he needs us," Cody said rationally.
"He could at least be politely rude," Zack retorted, his eyes following the man's back before he vanished behind a bulkhead.
"You need to calm down and focus yourself. He could be nervous and about the meeting and he's just lashing out."
"He's lucky we're on the same side or I'd show him how a Jedi, even a kid Jedi, lashes out."
"Zack..."
"I'm fine."
"You're worrying me."
"I'm good, I promise. I'm just tense over all this secrecy and whatever it is I'm feeling."
"We've still got nearly an hour before we land. Why don't you go find a quiet corner and meditate for a bit? See if you can't cool your emotions."
"I think I might," Zack said with a sigh. He didn't need the Force to hear the frustration in Cody's voice.
Cody's unease didn't let up when Zack left him on the bridge to clear his mind. He took a deep breath and tried to empty all thoughts from his head and let the Force flow through him. He sought out any hints of the trouble Zack was sensing but came up empty handed. He opened his eyes again and shook his head, puzzled. If it was out there, he couldn't sense it. Cody locked his hands over the back of a chair and waited.
Sleheyron jumped onto Zack's list of least favorite planets the second they descended the ramp and stepped onto the pitted landing pad. The air was incredibly humid and filled with the sound of millions of buzzing and chirping insects as well as the fetid odor of a nearby swamp. "Leave it to a Hutt to consider a place like this a paradise world," he muttered as the ramp raised and locked behind them. Cody quietly agreed as they fell into step a dozen paces behind the two ambassadors.
There was no speeder transport arranged for them, another piece to their clandestine mission, Zack supposed, so by the time they'd reached the halfway point on their trek to the Hutt's palace, his underclothes were soaked and sticking to his body like a second skin. He stole a glance at his brother and saw that Cody was his usual calm, focused self.
"Relax, Zack. Everything is going according to plan so far."
"It might be," Zack retorted, "if we knew what the plan actually was. I still don't buy that this is anything like what we've been told. It just feels wrong."
"Is that the Force speaking or is that you?"
"I think it's both. You still don't feel it?"
"I don't."
Zack scowled. "It's there. It feels like a storm that's about to break all over us."
Cody studied Zack for a brief moment. "You might be sensing some of the scum we're going to be encountering soon. Hutts aren't known for keeping a high standard of associates."
"Maybe. Either way, stay alert," he said. Inside, Zack was troubled. Cody had always been better at sensing the flow of the Force than he was. If Cody didn't feel it, could it just be his imagination? His eyes never stayed on the same target for more than a fraction of a second and inside his robes his hand tightened around the hilt of his lightsaber.
"We come for an audience with His Largeness Rebraca the Hutt," Chelko said a short while later as they stood at the gates of the palace. "He is expecting us." The portly human handed over a small datapad to the guard and the group waited as it was fed into a reader. A porcine Gammorean passed a small scanner over the ambassadors and waved them ahead. The guard came to the twins and began to scan them as well.
"We are unarmed," Cody said with a small gesture. "We may pass." The Gammorean squeaked his assent and stepped aside. "Thank you," Cody said with a nod and they joined the diplomats as they waited for the doors to creak open. They stepped in through the oversized doors and were met by a small contingent of armed riffraff.
"This way," a Rodian grumbled in broken Basic as he led them through a maze of corridors. Cody quickly became certain they were being led in circles in an attempt to make them think the palace larger and grander than it was. After nearly ten minutes of walking they arrived at a small room and were ushered inside. "Refreshments will be served," the Rodian croaked before shutting the door on them.
"Hutt hospitality at its finest," Zack said as he took up station near the door and tried to shake off his growing frustration.
"They don't run five-nova establishments, young man," Chelko said dismissively, "they run crime rings. I think we should be satisfied that we are inside in the relative cool and not standing in a dungeon with our hands in chains." Zack swallowed the retort that was forming on his tongue and focused on not disliking the man so intently.
Chelko had checked his comlink nearly thirty times when the door abruptly opened and a thoroughly scratched and dented droid stepped through and into the room. "I am MOS-B at your disposal." The droid gave a rusty bow before continuing. "His Rotundness Rebraca the Hutt says that he will be with you shortly and-"
Zack tuned the droid out as the feeling of unease he had been feeling suddenly began to boil within him. His eyes quickly locked with Cody's and his brother nodded.
"I feel it now," he whispered.
"MOS-B, what's going on?" Zack asked as he stood. "What's happening?"
"Everything is perfectly under control, young sir," the droid replied just as the palace shook. Dust rained down from the ceiling and coated everything in the room in a fine sandy film.
"Is it?" Cody asked.
"What's going on, droid?" the ambassador asked furiously as he wiped his robes clean.
"There seems to be a small internecine disturbance on the outskirts of the-"
"Get down!" Zack screamed and threw himself at Chelko. A split second later nearly half of the ceiling collapsed, burying most of the room under large fragments of stone.
"A small disturbance doesn't bring down the palace," Zack said as he shifted a piece of stone from his shoulder.
"We've got to get out of here," Cody announced as he frantically searched through the rubble for the second ambassador.
"No!" Chelko groaned, "we have to finish the mission." Cody looked over and saw the man trying to pull himself out from under a pile of stones.
"This mission is over!" Zack shouted back as he used the Force to lift the heavy stones away from the man. He felt his stomach flip when he saw the condition of the man's lower body. He looked over to Cody and saw he had uncovered the alien. "Is she...?"
"She's gone."
"Cody, can we move him?" Cody hurriedly moved over to the diplomat and gave him a quick examination. He looked up from the man's broken body and gave Zack a hopeless look.
"We're going to have to, Zack. If we stay here, he'll die for sure. I can patch him up a little, maybe stop the bleeding, but I don't know." As if to emphasize his remark, the palace shook again and a large piece of stone fell from the ceiling a few meters up the hallway.
All the fears Zack had been harboring about the mission had coalesced around them as Cody began ripping pieces from his robe to use as makeshift bandages. Zack put his ear to the door and heard the din of hundreds of voices and sounds through the metal.
"Do what you can, Cody. As soon as he's safe to move, we're out of here."
"We cannot leave," the wounded man protested again. "What we are doing here is vital to the future of the Alliance."
"We are leaving and we're leaving now," Zack retorted. "This has felt wrong since the second I stepped on board your ship. We get here and suddenly the palace comes under attack? I don't like any of it and we're going to cut our losses. The Alliance can send someone else to negotiate the treaty." Zack watched the man's face closely and narrowly avoided the urge to dive into his mind to find out exactly what was so important. Instead he waited as calmly as he could while the sounds of alarms and blaster bolts and last breaths made their way through the stone walls.
Cody finished his triage moments later and hoisted the man up as gently as he could and leaned him over a shoulder. His face rippled with a grimace as he balanced the man's weight. Once settled, he nodded to his brother who punched the button to open the door.
Many of the lights in the ceiling were out as they crept into the hallway. "MOS-B, what's the quickest way out of the palace?" Zack asked as he drew and ignited his lightsaber.
"The fastest way through the palace and back to the landing facilities is that way," the droid said, pointing a spindly arm down a corridor.
They advanced quickly but cautiously before a right-handed bend in the hall led them into a large audience chamber and into the middle of everything. Alloy blades clashed and sliced and the sounds of dozens of blasters echoed harshly in the room. The corpulent Hutt was in one corner giving orders to his small army. His bulbous eyes looked in their direction and the twins, even at a fair distance, could see that he was shaking with rage.
"The Almighty Rebraca says that this outrage is your fault," the droid calmly translated after the Hutt jabbed a chubby arm at them and bellowed. "You arrive and bring civil war to his throne. He says that he will show you all one hundred ways to nearly die, each more terrible than the last, before he-"
Zack turned his attention away from the giant worm and locked his gaze on the bleeding diplomat. "We aren't responsible for any of this, right? We aren't responsible for it, are we?"
"No, this is not our doing, I swear it," the man groaned.
"It better not be." In the few seconds it took to get the confirmation, a portion of the Hutt's forces had begun charging in their direction and Zack swung his lightsaber and cleaved through a Nikto that had unluckily been at the head of the pack.
"MOS-B, we need another way out of here," Cody said as he edged a step closer to the wall.
"The fastest way out of the palace is still down the corridor behind Master Rebraca," the droid said fussily, nodding his head at the sea of warring bodies and spilled internal fluids.
"None of us are going to make it through that," Zack said, "not me, not my brother, not this wounded man, and definitely not you. An alternate route would be great." He deflected a stray blaster bolt into the ceiling.
"Don't Hutts always have a hundred and one secret ways out of their palaces?" Cody asked as they started backing down the hallway, flicking the fingers of one hand and sending a cloud of dust from the floor to slow their pursuers. Zack wrapped the invisible hand of the Force around another's snout and slammed him headfirst into the ground.
"That number would be silly," MOS-B told him. "Master Rebraca only has six."
"Well do you think that you could lead us to one of them?" Zack shouted.
"I do believe I can. There is an access hatch to one of the passages to His Largeness' personal vessel approximately one hundred and twelve meters behind us."
"Lead the way," Zack told the droid as he started to walk backwards behind the others to keep their tail clear.
The droid shuffled along with the Jedi close behind it, each meter seeming to last twenty. Finally the droid stopped and touched a recessed switch. The entire wall swung inward and a dimly lit hallway stretched out before them.
"This way, young sirs." The droid led Cody down the path while Zack remained at the door.
"Come on, Zack!" Cody called back once he realized his brother wasn't with them.
"You go on, get him to the ship. I'll hold them off and join you."
Cody could feel the lust for battle in his brother's voice without even using the Force. "No you won't! Come back here now!" He stopped in his tracks and waited.
"Cody, go!" Cody began walking back up the path. "What are you doing?" Zack called out as he felt Cody approach.
"We're leaving together or we're not leaving," he calmly replied.
Zack growled low in his throat and reached out with the Force and pulled on the wall, slamming it shut. "Fine, let's go." Cody could tell he wasn't happy about the situation but didn't care.
They moved quickly, soon finding themselves emerging into a small hanger with a heavily modified and obviously expensive ship sitting before them. They made for the ramp and were inside after eliminating the lone Hutt guard just inside the hatch. Zack tossed his body out onto the landing pad and raced to the cockpit. MOS-B closed the ramp and followed as fast as he could.
"Looks like the Hutt was of the paranoid kind. The ship is just about ready to take off," Zack said as he threw himself down into the copilot's chair. "How's the ambassador?"
"Bad," Cody said as he strapped the man into a jump seat behind Zack. He climbed into the pilot's seat and joined his brother in throwing switches and entering commands. "MOS-B, can you keep an eye on him while we get out of here?"
"I can. Humanoid physiology and its subsequent maintenance is one of my sub-specialties. Though, I don't know how much I can do in this case."
"Just do what you can," Cody told the droid as he powered the craft's repulsor coils and steered toward the opening in the wall. He barely missed clipping the roof of the hangar and unconsciously ducked.
"Yeah, you're the good pilot," Zack said as he settled back and let Cody do his thing.
"This ship might look good but it handles like an overloaded garbage scow in the atmosphere," Cody replied as he tightened his grip. "Get our other ship on the com and tell them to get back to the Event Horizon, Zack. We'll meet them there."
"Copy that."
"We can't leave orbit," Chelko rasped after the droid injected him with a pain killer.
Zack spun his chair around and stared at the man. "Why not? What was so important about this mission?"
"We...were waiting for a message," the man said.
"You know, I think it's about time you come clean with us," Zack said as he leaned forward into the man's bruised face.
"Easy, Zack," Cody murmured without turning around.
"I think he at least owes us an explanation," Zack grumbled. Further argument was cut off by a slow but steady beeping from the man's robes. Zack shook his head and turned away as the man dug the comlink out of a pocket.
"We've got to get to Harana as soon as possible," Chelko said after he was finished reading the message.
"No, we've got to get you back to the Event Horizon and get you patched up or else you are probably going to die," Cody told him.
"You don't understand," he said with a shake of his head, "this is more important than my life or yours."
"You're right, I don't. Why don't you make me understand?" Zack demanded.
The man suddenly sounded very old. "The signing of the treaty on Sleheyron was a front for a far bigger Alliance plan," he said. Zack's eyes met his brother's and Cody could see I told you so gleaming in them. "It was the final step for Operation Reforger."
"Never heard of it," Zack admitted.
"Nor should you. Reforger is a massive ultra-secret plan to liberate nearly a dozen Nebulon-B frigates, just like your Event Horizon, from the orbital dockyards on Kuat."
"What?" Cody said in amazement. "How is that possible?"
"The Alliance has been slipping agents into the work crews for the last standard year as the ships near completion and we've been working behind the scenes to get the command codes to operate them."
"And that's what you were going to pick up on Sleheyron?" Cody asked.
"Correct," Chelko turned away and coughed up a mouthful of blood, "but the agent that had the codes never made contact."
"He's on Harana?" Zack questioned and the man nodded slightly. "Why didn't he just transmit the codes and save all this trouble?"
"Two reasons. One, the man who obtained the codes for us is the head of one of Kuat's noble houses. He's funneled trillions of credits to the Alliance over the years and it was deemed foolish to put such an important asset at risk. Two, transmitting something as big as the command codes would stick out like a black bantha to the Imperials."
"We'll take you back to the Event Horizon and then go after the codes," Zack told him.
"No, you won't. We have to get there as quickly as we can. If I die, I die. The Alliance needs those codes more than it needs me."
"What else haven't you told us?" Zack's frustration returned. "Why the hurry?"
"He never made contact with us because he's in Imperial custody on Harana."
"Of course he is." Zack slammed his chair back around and began plotting a course on the nav computer.
Each year when summer comes around I always think I'm going to have tons of free time to write. Nope. Every summer I always end up insanely busy doing things I never expect and barely have time to sleep, much less write.
I don't want to get anyone's hopes up with a promise of another chapter in a week or two because, realistically, things probably won't slow down until around October. Hopefully I'm wrong but after the month-plus time between this chapter and the last...yeah.
This chapter is the beginning of the end of part one and the pace and action are going to pick up drastically, I promise. Anyway, thanks for putting up with my big delays and I'll get the next bit posted as soon as I can.
