Annihilation Read online

  Much of the detonator’s concussive shock wave escaped through the roof, but the blast had still been powerful enough to wreak havoc on the hangar. The crates had been blown to bits, showering the hangar and everything in it in a dusting of spice and splintered chunks of wood. The loader lay on its side beside her, upended by the force of the blast.

  The bodies of Frinn and the bounty hunter Gorvich shot had been flung all the way to the rear of the hangar, where they’d landed in twisted heaps. Teff’ith realized the loader had shielded her from the worst of the blast; it was the only reason she’d survived. She wondered if Gorvich had been as lucky as she rose unsteadily to her feet.

  Her ears were still ringing and her balance was off kilter; it was all she could do not to topple over. On the far side of the room she saw an armored man crawling on his hands and knees—the assassin who’d tossed the explosive. He was clearly shaken and disoriented, but he was moving slowly toward where his blaster rifle lay on the floor nearby.

  Teff’ith grabbed for the pistol at her hip, but the sudden motion was too much in her wobbly state, and she staggered sideways and fell to the ground. Her clumsy movements drew the attention of the assassin as he wrapped his fingers around his weapon.

  He drew it up slowly and took aim at Teff’ith. Before he could fire, a single shot came from over her shoulder, striking him in the chest. His armor absorbed the worst of the blow, but the impact sent him sprawling backward and the gun dropped from his hand.

  Teff’ith turned to see Vebb coming down the ship’s boarding ramp, pistol in hand and a grim look in his eyes as he advanced on his vulnerable opponent.

  In a fair fight the pilot wouldn’t have stood a chance, but Vebb had been inside the ship when the detonator had gone off—he was the only one not staggering and stumbling around. The assassin sat up and fumbled at his belt, going for his backup weapon as Vebb continued toward him. The Rodian fired three more shots from point-blank range, putting an end to his desperate, clumsy efforts.

  He turned to Teff’ith and took hold of her arm, dragging her to her feet.

  “Not so fast,” she grumbled, swaying unsteadily even with his support.

  “Gotta hurry,” he told her, his voice sounding distant and hollow.

  Teff’ith looked in the direction he was pointing and saw that the ship’s core had been badly damaged by the explosion.

  “Casing’s cracked,” he said. “Thing could blow any second.”

  Teff’ith nodded. With Vebb’s help she stumbled over to the waiting ship and half staggered, half crawled up the boarding ramp. To her surprise, Gorvich was already waiting for them in the hold.

  “Check her out,” Vebb said as he gently lowered her to the floor. Then he punched the button to retract the ramp before racing up to the cockpit.

  Gorvich was covered in scrapes and bruises, and he moved with a pronounced limp as he slowly made his way over to the ship’s medkit. But otherwise he seemed to be okay; clearly the loader had shielded him from the worst of the blast as well.

  Fortune favors fools, Teff’ith thought as the ship took to the air.

  There was a deep boom from somewhere far below them as the cracked casing on the engine core gave way. The explosion made the ship buck and lurch, sending Gorvich tumbling hard to the floor where he landed with a heavy grunt.

  “Stupid Rodian can’t even fly straight,” he muttered as he hauled himself back to his feet.

  In her mind’s eye Teff’ith could imagine the damage caused by the fuel core’s detonation. Bays 7 through 12 would all be out of commission for weeks as crews cleaned up the mess and made structural repairs. The Hutts wouldn’t be happy about the lost revenue; they’d be looking for someone to blame. Morbo might end up having to foot the bill—he was the one who organized the hit that went sour. She decided it would be wise to stay far away from Nar Shaddaa for the foreseeable future.

  Gorvich sat down gingerly beside her and opened the medkit.

  “Show me where it hurts, Sunshine,” he said with a lecherous smile.

  “Don’t need help,” she growled, slapping his hand away as he reached out toward her.

  “Why are you so mad? We may have left half the spice behind, but it’s still a good score.”

  “Frinn’s dead,” she reminded him. “Your fault. Should have paid Morbo.”

  Gorvich shrugged. “Never liked Frinn much. Besides, now we get to split his share. It all worked out for the best.”

  Teff’ith wasn’t so ready to simply dismiss everything that had happened. Now that they were free and clear, she had a strong sense that they weren’t seeing all the pieces of the puzzle.

  “Missing something,” she muttered. “Why only two assassins? Send three, we don’t stand a chance.”

  “We got lucky. Happens sometimes. Try to enjoy it.”

  “Don’t rely on luck. It turns.”

  “Always doom and gloom with you, isn’t it, Sunshine?” Gorvich said, shaking his head as he rose to his feet and made his way to the cockpit.

  Alone in the hold, Teff’ith couldn’t let it go. She kept playing the fight over and over in her head, trying to understand why Morbo hadn’t taken the simple precaution of sending a third assassin to cut off their retreat. The more she struggled with the problem, the more she became convinced she had overlooked something very, very obvious.

  Theron was already outside the spaceport, milling with the rest of the crowd beyond the doors, when he heard the first explosion. He resisted the urge to rush back inside; he didn’t want to draw any unwanted attention to himself, but he couldn’t help wondering if something had gone wrong with Teff’ith’s plan. When he saw her ship taking off after a short time, he breathed a deep sigh of relief.

  The second explosion came an instant later, this one much larger than the first. Cries of dismay welled up from the crowd, most from pilots and captains imagining what damage might have been done to their ships.

  “Which hangar are you in?” Theron asked the Sullustan he’d been speaking with earlier.

  “Bay Ten,” he replied glumly in his native tongue. Then his eyes narrowed. “You ran inside. Why?”

  “Had to check on my cargo,” Theron lied. “Make sure everything was safe.”

  “You come back out, big explosions,” the Sullustan continued. “Suspicious.”

  “Don’t try to pin this on me,” Theron said defensively. “You said it yourself. Hutt business. You got a problem, talk to them.”

  The Sullustan continued to glare at Theron for several seconds, then finally turned away.

  “Just worried about my ship.”

  “Me too,” Theron said. When he continued, he spoke loud enough for the others in the crowd to hear. “That explosion sounded bad. The Hutts will probably want to shut down the whole spaceport while they make repairs.”

  “Shut it down?” the Sullustan echoed, the idea suddenly taking root in his head.

  “Yeah. They’ll probably quarantine the whole area and seize everything inside as evidence while they investigate what happened.”

  There was a moment of stunned silence as the crowd pondered the implications of his words, then a woman shouted, “No way I’m letting those greedy slugs get their mitts on my ship!”

  Her defiant outcry touched off a stampede as everyone tried to get inside at once, pushing and shoving one another out of the way in their haste to grab whatever cargo they could and take off before the Hutts swooped in and closed the spaceport down.

  Theron waited a few seconds until the small crowd had completely disappeared into the spaceport. Confident there wouldn’t be any witnesses sticking around to give his description to the Hutts and cause trouble for Republic SIS, he sauntered off in the other direction, whistling an old Mantellian tune.

  CHAPTER 5

  MARCUS TRANT HAD A LOT ON HIS MIND. As Director of Republic Strategic Information Service, that wasn’t unusual—he was always juggling the day-to-day operations of the Republic’s intelligence arm with the political
games necessary for any government agency to stay afloat. Unlike some of the Republic’s more traditional institutions—the Jedi, or the Galactic Senate, for example—SIS still had to justify its existence at every turn to keep from getting shut down or having its funding slashed by a Senator campaigning for reelection on a platform of “responsible government spending.”

  Unlike the military, most of what the SIS did was behind the scenes and off the record. Marcus liked to tell his operatives that if they did their job right, nobody would even know what they had done. Unfortunately, that answer didn’t fly when facing a budget hearing. The bureaucrats who ultimately decided his organization’s fate wanted something to show for the credits they poured into the SIS. They expected the Director to reveal highly classified mission details, ignoring the fact that doing so would jeopardize his people.

  Fending off their ridiculous requests was exhausting; things would be much easier with a strong political ally who could vouch for the value of what the SIS did. Someone too powerful and important to be questioned by the politicians and desk-jockeys. Someone like Jace Malcom, the Supreme Commander of the Republic military. Jace was a highly respected and universally admired war hero; having him in the SIS corner would help get the simpering bureaucrats to back off. The recently appointed Supreme Commander had asked SIS to undertake a special mission. Everything had been going smoothly until Theron got mixed up in it.

  The Director hadn’t heard from Theron since yesterday, when he’d tersely broken off their conversation about what he was doing on Nar Shaddaa. Since then Theron had disappeared, but not before disabling a fellow SIS agent, causing an industrial accident at one of Nar Shaddaa’s spaceports, and unraveling three months of covert surveillance.

  Despite all this, the Director was waiting before filing his official report. Theron was one of his best agents; he’d earned the benefit of the doubt. The least Marcus could do was wait to hear his side of the story before ending his career.

  The receptionist behind the desk in Jace’s waiting room looked up at his arrival, and Marcus was immediately struck by her remarkable green eyes.

  “Go right in, Director,” she said, flashing him a dazzling smile as she pressed the button to open the office door in the wall behind her. “The Commander’s waiting for you.”

  He passed by the receptionist and into the office beyond, trying to focus on how he could explain what had gone wrong to the Supreme Commander without getting Theron court-martialed.

  Jace Malcom was seated behind a desk, studying his computer monitor intently. His skin was lighter than the Director’s own ebony hue, though still tanned and weathered—the complexion of a man who had spent most of his life outdoors. Hints of his age showed in the crow’s-feet around his eyes and the slight graying at the temples of his dark hair, though it was hard to notice with the short military cut he sported. But his body was still in fighting shape: broad-shouldered and thick-chested, he looked like he could hold his own on the battlefield.

  His most notable feature was the gruesome patchwork of scars and melted flesh that covered most of the right side of his face. He’d been wounded by a detonator many years ago at the Battle of Alderaan while serving as the leader of the legendary Havoc Squad special forces unit.

  Looking at the scarring, the Director couldn’t help thinking of Theron again. It had been Theron’s mother—Master Satele Shan, now the Grand Master of the Jedi Order—who’d led the Jedi that fought alongside Havoc Squad that day. Together Satele and Jace fought the Sith Lord Darth Malgus on the battlefield, turning the tide of the conflict. Though Malgus survived the encounter, the Republic won the day and reclaimed Alderaan from the Empire.

  “Close the door, Director,” Jace said, turning away from the screen. “And take a seat.”

  Marcus snapped off a curt salute, then settled into the chair across from the Supreme Commander.

  “Your message said we had to talk about Transom,” Jace said. “I assume something’s gone wrong.”

  “Someone slipped in and freed the prisoners before the auction,” the Director explained. “Stole them right out from under Morbo’s nose.”

  “And blew up a spaceport, too,” Jace noted.

  “And that,” Marcus admitted sheepishly.

  Transom is Jace’s pet project. Should have guessed he’d be following it more closely than usual.

  “I thought the plan was to wait until after the auction,” Jace pressed. “Get our people back after they left Nar Shaddaa so Morbo wouldn’t know we’d found out about his slave trafficking ring.”

  “We had a communication breakdown,” Marcus said, choosing his words carefully. “Two agents following different agendas got in each other’s way. We’re still trying to sort out the details.”

  “Isn’t it your job to make sure your agents stay out of each other’s way?” the Supreme Commander asked.

  The Director’s options were clear—tell Jace about Theron defying orders to act on his own, or stay silent and take the blame himself.

  “You’re right, sir. I accept full responsibility. It won’t happen again.”

  The Supreme Commander didn’t reply. Instead, he just stared at Marcus in silence, causing the Director to shift uncomfortably in his seat.

  He knows I’m holding something back. Covering for someone.

  Eager to get out from under Jace’s penetrating gaze, the Director broke the silence.

  “I know how important Operation Transom was to you, sir,” Marcus said. “And we did manage to rescue Republic soldiers who would otherwise have spent their lives as slaves.

  “Maybe what happened on Nar Shaddaa will send a message,” he continued. “Make the Hutts think twice before selling off Republic POWs. Remind them that we look after our own.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Jace said, his glare softening. “Maybe it’s for the best, anyway. Free up resources for something else. Something big.”

  Something bigger than saving your fellow soldiers from slavery? Marcus silently wondered.

  “What are your feelings on the current state of the war effort?” the Supreme Commander asked, seeming to suddenly change topics.

  The question was familiar enough; the Director had answered it a hundred different times in various meetings over the years. Usually he would give the answer he thought the listener was looking for to make the meeting go more smoothly. But Jace wasn’t like the politicians he usually dealt with, and he decided that being blunt and honest was worth the risk.

  “The Empire is reeling. For the first time in decades we have the upper hand. When the Emperor fell, it left a void atop the Sith power structure. Malgus tried to fill it, but when his coup failed and he was killed, the Empire was left without a clear leader to rally them.”

  After a brief pause he added, “Imperial Intelligence has fallen apart. Without their input, the Imperial military strategy has become ineffective and unfocused. You can’t run a war without good intel.”

  “You don’t have to sell me on SIS,” Jace told him, a hint of a smile on his lips. “I appreciate what you bring to the table. Believe it or not, I actually read all those reports you send me.”

  “Sorry, Commander. Guess I’m used to dealing with politicians and bureaucrats.”

  “I’ve been studying your analysis of Imperial threats quite closely,” Jace continued. “There’s one in particular that caught my eye: the Ascendant Spear.”

  Once again Marcus’s thoughts returned to Theron. The Ascendant Spear was a prototype long-range battle cruiser developed by the brilliant Darth Mekhis as part of a secret Imperial weapons program. Theron, with the help of his mentor Jedi Master Ngani Zho, learned about the program and nearly ended it by killing Darth Mekhis. Of all her deadly creations, only the Ascendant Spear still survived.

  Zho died on that mission, Marcus thought. Gave his life to save Teff’ith. That’s why Theron feels responsible for her now.

  All the connections to Theron were starting to feel like more than just coincidence. His
mother would probably say something about the Force working in mysterious ways, but the Director knew Theron wasn’t attuned to the Force. Not like a Jedi.

  “Something wrong, Director?”

  Marcus shook his head, trying to get out of his own thoughts. “Just thinking about the Ascendant Spear.”

  “Fill me in.”

  “Most of what we know is theory and conjecture, pieced together from battlefield reports. It’s got some kind of revolutionary hyperdrive—probably the fastest ship ever built. Enough firepower to wipe out an entire fleet.”

  “Your reports estimate the Ascendant Spear is responsible for more Republic casualties than the next ten most effective Imperial battle cruisers combined.”

  “The Spear is so much more advanced than any other ship that we still don’t know its full capabilities,” the Director admitted.

  “And what about the commander? Darth Karrid?”

  “Darth Malgus’s apprentice,” the Director said. “She’s a Falleen. Used to be on our side. Trained with the Jedi before defecting to the Sith.”

  “I’m surprised they accepted her,” Jace said. “I thought they believed only humans and pure-blooded Sith were worthy of joining their ranks.”

  “Malgus was different,” Marcus explained, before adding, “Karrid’s a tactical genius, and she’s completely ruthless. Every battle the Ascendant Spear has been involved in has been a massacre for our side. If it weren’t for Karrid and the Spear, we might have already won this war.”

  Jace nodded, and the Director had the impression that the Supreme Commander already knew all this. It was almost as if Jace had been testing him.

  “I’m putting a task force together to take Ascendant Spear down,” the Supreme Commander said.

  Marcus was impressed by the boldness of the plan, but his enthusiasm was tempered by reality. As much as he wanted to voice his support to get in good with Jace, he felt he owed it to the Supreme Commander to be honest.