"Is this for real? We come all this way and get here early, and now we've got to wait? We're on a schedule here!"
Cole's tirade was endured by a beige-uniformed Human dock attendant who looked just as confused as he was annoyed. "That's the point, man. You're three standard hours ahead of schedule. The cylinders haven't even been staged yet." He waved the datapad in his hand at a large door off to the left. A dust-coated yellow sign read:
CAUTION
THIS DOOR IS NOT FOR PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC
PLEASE USE MAN DOOR
Cleared as a standard light freighter employed by CT5 Galactic Logistics, the Ebon Hawk had been directed to land on Torque Highport's depot level, just above the midpoint of the station. Most of this level was taken up by storage rooms for everything from foodstuff and cleaning supplies to tools and spare parts for the station's upkeep—and, in the case of this phony errand, used cryo-cylinders which were to be recycled at a CT5 facility.
"Well, when are they gonna be staged?" asked Cole.
"One hour before you're scheduled to be here."
"Oh, come on. Is there any way we can speed up the process at all?"
"You're not the only ship that's got stuff to pick up, you know."
Kaevee stuck to the plan and did nothing except cross her arms and glower at the attendant. Beforehand, she'd worried about how convincingly she could maintain an air of cold annoyance, but as she listened to the two men argue for minutes on end, she found that it wasn't difficult at all.
They all winced when the pulsing tone of an alarm screamed overhead. The attendant checked his datapad. "There's an intruder alert. Something on Level Four. That's way up top."
"No kidding?" asked Cole, digging into an ear with a finger. "Nothing serious, is it?"
"Security will take care of it. Look, I've got to get back to my station. You, wait on your ship until I tell you. When they give the all-clear, I'll see if anyone's free to get your cryo-cylinders over here." Without waiting to be badgered any more, the man disappeared into the dock office.
Kaevee's thoughts rapidly turned grave as she and Cole ascended the Ebon Hawk's ramp, the top of which was being guarded by Ecksee. "This isn't good."
She was neither consoled nor surprised when her partner showed little concern. "It's all going according to plan so far. We get the easy side of things."
"You said the same thing on Malachor," remarked Kaevee before she could stop herself.
"You really didn't have to bring that up, kid," Cole muttered.
As Kaevee wrestled down a welter of unpleasant emotions, she was able to see that his point was correct. Between the various guards, passive security, Prefect Olligard, and the distance that had to be covered, Atris and Atton were by far in the more dangerous position. All the rest of the crew had to do was avoid attracting attention, keep the Ebon Hawk secure, and perform a simple task that would, as Atton had explained, Kill two flipdarters with one bolt. Get some of security's eyes off of us and help cover our tracks.
They each took a station in the Ebon Hawk's communications room. Remote was waiting there and plugged itself into Cole's console, murmuring its little beeps and chimes as it helped him with his task. Meanwhile Kaevee switched on the ship's comlink and keyed a brief message to Atton, telling him where they had docked—DP Bay 97.
This done, she let her eyes drift shut and sank into the Force as slowly as she could, waiting for its wordless guidance and counsel to come to her. The mere starship enclosing her began to drift away...
"Sense anything? I mean, anything important?"
Cole's voice almost made her jump. He'd half-turned his seat toward her, one hand still on the console before him.
"I sense the, the conflict... and the dark side. The Sith," Kaevee said, a bit disoriented. She took a breath and recollected herself. "I think there's more than one on this station."
For a moment he just looked at her, his lips pursed, then gave a shrug and went back to his work. "Well, don't worry about it. They don't know we're here, right? Atton can handle himself, and so can the old woman if she's willing to run with him. No need to start panicking yet."
Kaevee glowered at the back of his head, remembering how agitated and frantic he'd been on Gulvitch, when a Sith adept had been on their heels. Of course he would be so calm and collected now, when none of the danger was anywhere near him. That's all you are, a coward.
She forced herself to look away. You know he's right, she tried to convince herself. Follow the plan. Trust the Force.
"Okay, we're in business," announced Cole as his console and the Remote gave out a few satisfying chirps. Several hundred meters below, in one of the regular docking bays of the station, the Crystal Shore's computer responded to the slave circuit codes that the Ebon Hawk had transmitted.
Kaevee looked about as every screen in the room filled with reports on the star courier's systems. Despite her continued dislike of space travel, she secretly felt some fondness for the ship. It was an exotic antique, uncannily beautiful—totally unlike the Ebon Hawk's vulgar, pedestrian design. She almost felt like she would miss it. Nevertheless, retrieving it was not a mission priority, nor could they leave it behind for the Sith.
Cole's fingers tapped at his keys. "Looks like the durinium's still doing its job."
Smugglers who wished to hide illegal goods often used durinium alloy to block rudimentary sensor scans; Kaevee had recently learned that the Ebon Hawk's cargo hold was lined with this material. On Krylon, it had been necessary to do the same thing with the Crystal Shore's, so as to conceal the thorium explosives it was carrying.
Cole opened a small compartment in his console and retrieved a cylinder of glossy black metal encircled by a ridged rubber grip. Since Torque Highport was already on alert, there wasn't much point in putting off their diversion.
Another tone came from the computer, this one shrill and urgent. Cole raised an eyebrow. "Tamper alarm. Somebody's trying to get aboard the courier." In a few seconds he had them patched into the Crystal Shore's security cam feeds. As the screens switched over, excitement drew both of them to their feet.
One of the cams afforded a wide view of the courier's main hold. It also showed the entrance hatch, where a square-shaped slab of hull had just been sliced away. Over the steaming, glowing threshold marched a squad of fully armored troopers, and at the front of them, bearing a shining red lightsaber—
Turned to granite, Kaevee stared while Cole let out a hearty chuckle. "Well, what do you know. It's our old buddy from Telthek Nest."
And it was. The same Sith adept who had attacked them on the hangar catwalks now marched imperiously across the Crystal Shore's deck. The feed had no sound, but he could be seen gesturing and turning about, barking orders at the rifle-toting troopers at his back. Faced with magnetic seals on several of the doors, they produced military-grade plasma torches and started to cut through—they had several rooms between them and the cargo hold—while the Sith headed for the Crystal Shore's cockpit.
"Want to do the honors, kid?" The smirk on Cole's face was bizarre: wide and almost shining, totally devoid of bitterness or irony.
Kaevee didn't quite hear him. Though she had not reached out to the Force, she felt it around her now, crackling with intensity as it penetrated and suffused the station and everyone aboard. Through it, she perceived herself as a single node in a web, but with each breath she drew, the threads that made her up were being drawn tighter and tighter.
Most of all the thread between her and the Sith adept—and there he was now in the Crystal Shore's cockpit, holding his lightsaber up like a torch, as if he couldn't see without its glow. Eying the empty chairs and idly blinking computer consoles, he tilted his head, listening for something. The far-off, downward-angled views of the cameras lent him a surreal quality that bordered on the comical. On Gulvitch, Kaevee had noticed that he was a bit on the short side, but now he looked absolutely tiny. And there, too, he had been loud and imperious, but now he was voiceless. Insignificant. And even with the power of the Force enveloping him, he was absolutely defenseless—just as all the Jedi had been on Dantooine.
Kaevee looked down. In her hand was the detonator. Slowly, as though reality had to cross a vast gulf in order to reach her awareness, she realized that Cole had handed it to her, and that she had accepted it.
Her fist tightened around it as she looked back at the display and the man in the cockpit, awash with the blood-red glow of his blade. She didn't know his name, but it didn't matter. He was one of them. The Sith, who had left the galaxy in ruins, who who had robbed Kaevee of her childhood and stolen her destiny, who had destroyed the Jedi Order and killed her Master and everyone else she had cared about.
And just as Kaevee had hated the bounty hunters on Daluuj and the Nautolan on Malachor V, she hated that vicious little man on the screen and the toy soldiers he had brought with him. She hated them, and she could kill them all right now, and they deserved it, and it was even what she was supposed to do. Everything was perfect.
So why did it feel wrong?
Cole had taken a step closer—close enough for it to be uncomfortable. He wasn't smirking anymore. "Kid, do you read me? What's wrong?"
"He knows we're watching him," she murmured.
"So blow him to hell! What's the problem?"
"I..." She met his brown eyes, trying to hold the shaking inside, hating the Sith and hating that Cole was seeing her this way, scared and ashamed and unable to act, and all for no reason that she could begin to put into words.
"You do it," she said, thrusting the detonator at him, and immediately the heat and the tension started to drain away. Again, she didn't know why, but at that moment she was fine not knowing. There was a plan to follow, and Atton and Atris were counting on them.
"Wimp." Cole stepped away as he snatched the detonator. He gave it a twirl in one hand before tossing it to the other, then opened the release cap, flipped the safety guard, and thumbed the button.
Click, click, clack.
He made it look so easy, and he knew it, and he was disappointed in her—for some reason—but she was too relieved to care.
Around them, the security cam feeds all froze at once, then went black as a shudder went through the Force, and Kaevee could not tell whether it had brightened or darkened by a shade. Somehow it seemed to be both at once.