Текст книги "Sacrifice "

Автор книги: Karen Traviss

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 34 страниц)

Jacen, you liar. You said he resented the fact that I stopped him being your apprentice.

Only Jacen would—could—send him on a mission.

Luke considered casually asking Ben who'd sent him, but he knew anyway, and he didn't want to descend to tricking his own son into giving him information or putting him on the spot about Jacen. He didn't need any more proof that his nephew wasn't going to turn back to the light without some substantial help. It was help that Han and Leia couldn't give. It was beyond the Jedi Council, too.

This was family trouble. He'd sort it out, with or without Mara.

"Comlink silence?" he asked.

"Yes, Dad. Sorry." Ben might have been surprised by the hug, but he hadn't recoiled, either. "I can't discuss it. You understand, don't you?"

"Of course I do, son." And I bet I know who told you not to. "I really hoped you weren't going to stay in the GAG."

"I'm good at that kind of work."

"I know."

"I can't ever be a good little academy Jedi now, Dad. I have to see this through. We've had this argument before, haven't we?" Ben's tone was regretful, not a whiny teenager's protest about his parents' unfairness.

It was sobering to see him growing up so fast. Growing up? No, aging.

"There's a war going on, and once you've served, you know you can't walk away from it and sit it out while your . . . while your friends risk their lives."

"Luke . . ." Mara's tone was reproachful, with that slightly nasal edge that said she wanted Luke to stop. "Is this really the time for all that?"

He ignored her. "I understand, Ben. I do. But the GAG isn't the place you should be."

"Isn't it?"

"It's not the way the government should deal with dissent."

"Then that's why I should stay in," Ben said quietly. "If it's a bad organization, then it needs good people to stay in it and change it from the inside, and not abandon it to the bad guys. And if it's a good organization, then all you're really upset about is my safety, and I can handle that better than you think. You wanted me to be a Jedi. I'm beings Jedi."

Ben's logic and moral reasoning were impeccable. "You have a point."

"So am I a good person, Dad? Or do you think I've gone bad like you think the GAG has?"

It was a question Luke had never wanted to consider. What was a bad person? Most people who did evil things were neither good nor bad, just fallible mortals; the only truly irredeemable being he'd ever known was Palpatine. And presumably even Palpatine had once been a little boy, never dreaming he would be responsible for the deaths of billions and savoring his power.

Luke realized he wasn't sure he knew what a good person was when he saw one, or at which point they turned bad. He was painfully aware of Mara's gaze boring into him, green and icy like a river frozen in its flood.

"You're a good person, Ben." If he doing anything I didn't'? "You think about what you do."

"Thanks. And I'm not leaving the GAG, Dad. You'll have to make me, either physically or through the courts, and none of us wants that. Leave me where I can do some good."

Fights could be had without raised voices or angry words. Ben had fought and given his parents an ultimatum. Luke knew he would have to tackle

this another way.

And blast it, Ben was actually right. The GAG couldn't be abandoned to the bullyboys.

"Just look out for Lumiya," Luke said. "You told him, Mara?"

"I told him."

"So are you going to stay for something to eat, son?" he asked, feeling Mara's gaze thaw a little.

"I'd like that," said Ben, fourteen going on forty.

It was hard to have a family conversation over a meal without mentioning the war. Ben wanted to know how Han and Leia were doing. Mara shunted vegetables around her plate as if trying to sweep them under a carpet.

"Things aren't too good between Jacen and your aunt and uncle at the moment, sweetheart," she said. "But whatever he tells you, they still care about him and want him to be okay."

"It's not personal," Ben said. "Hey, I tried to arrest Uncle Han because it was my job. I didn't mean him any harm."

Luke thought about Jacen's haste to abandon his parents during the attack on the resort satellite. He couldn't see Ben doing the same thing.

If he could, he didn't want to see it.

"Dad, was the Empire really a reign of terror?"

"Just a bit . . ."

"I know you and Uncle Han and Aunt Leia had a rough time of it, but what about ordinary people?"

Mara chewed with slow deliberation, her gaze in slight defocus on a point

in the mid-distance. "You might want to ask Alderaan. No, wait—it's gone, isn't it? Oops. That's what happened to ordinary people, and I know better than most."

Because you did some of it. Luke faced up to the fact that he couldn't expect Ben to believe a word either of them said to him. They'd both done things that they were telling him he couldn't do now.

"But most people didn't really notice, did they?" Ben seemed to be fixed on course. "Their lives went on as before. Maybe a few people who were political got a midnight visit from a few stormies, but most folks got on with their lives, right?"

"Right," Mara conceded. "But living in fear isn't living at all."

"It's better than dead."

"You think the Empire was okay, Ben?" Luke asked.

"I don't know. It just seems that a handful of people can think they have the duty—the right—to change things for everybody else. It's a big decision, rebellion, isn't it? But most decisions that affect trillions of beings get made by a few people."

Luke and Mara looked at each other discreetly and then at Ben. He'd acquired political curiosity somewhere along the line. Whatever mission Jacen had sent him on—and he had, Luke was certain—it had made the boy think.

Or maybe Luke was just losing touch with the fact that his kid was a young man now, and changing fast. When he left, though, Mara still helped him on with his jacket. Luke almost expected her to ask him if he was brushing his teeth every day. But, being Mara, she did her maternal fretting in more pragmatic ways and pressed a matte-gray object into Ben's hand.

"Humor me," she said, and kissed his forehead. "Carry this. You never know."

Ben stared into his palm. "Wow."

"That," she said, "was the best vibroblade the Empire could buy. It saved me more than once. A lightsaber is great, but a lightsaber and a vibroblade is even better."

"Plus a blaster," Ben said. He grinned. "That's better still. The triple whammy."

"That's my boy."

After Ben had left, Mara cleared the plates. "When did we produce a communally minded political analyst?"

"Too many Gorog buddies, maybe."

"Does that look like an out-of-control, screwed-up boy to you?"

"No," Luke said, "but it's not Jacen's influence that's making a man of him, even if he's the only one who seems to be able to handle Ben."

"Luke, we still have to do something."

"Oh, now we have to do something? What happened to 'Leave him with Jacen, he's good for the boy . . .'?" Luke almost had to bite his lip to avoid saying that he'd told her so, which he'd always thought was the mark of someone who wasn't looking for a solution to the problem, just points to score. "Besides, he doesn't seem to be getting corrupted by what's happening. Maybe he is that good man on the inside. Maybe you were right to make me let our kid join the secret police—"

"I meant about Lumiya." Mara had a way of bracing her shoulders that said she knew she'd made a big mistake but he didn't have to rub her nose in it. "Okay, I've changed my mind. Jacen's gone bad. My fault we've wasted a few months placating Ben. Satisfied? Now what about the root cause of this?"

"We haven't picked up her trail again."

"And then what happens when we do?" Mara smacked the plates down on the counter so hard they rattled. "What are you going to do, hold her hand again?" He should never have told her that Lumiya had offered him her hand when they were fighting. It was eating away at her. "Because the poor old girl doesn't mean any harm? Lumiya? Queen of the stanging Sith?"

"There really was no ill intent in her."

Mara rolled her eyes. "Of course there wasn't. She doesn't want to kill you. She wants to kill our son." She grabbed Luke's face in both hands and made him look into her eyes. "Luke, you could have killed her.

Cut her in two. Finished the job. But you didn't."

Luke felt inexplicably ashamed. "I couldn't."

"I know. We come from different schools of justice, don't we?"

"Sweetheart—"

"She's not your father, Luke. There's nothing good left in her to redeem. She's a threat that needs to be taken out, and that's what I'm trained to do, and you're not. Forget this take her alive if possible garbage. The only way anyone's taking her is dead."

Luke had had a feeling Mara might say that. He knew when she was building up to something. She might have thought she could keep things from him, but he knew her well enough by now to see the cogs grinding and the plan forming.

He'd missed his chance with Lumiya. He wouldn't get another.

"You're telling me you're going after her."

"You might tag along if you could be trusted not to go soft on her." Mara let him go and looked embarrassed. Her cheeks were flushed.

"You can have Alema. She needs a serious attitude readjustment with a lightsaber, too. It's not as if we haven't got enough kill-crazy stalkers to go around."

No matter what happened, Luke knew he didn't have that assassin's ability to kill someone who wasn't trying to kill him right there and then. If he had . . .

So Ben wasn't the only one navigating a moral maze. Luke had been doing it for decades, but the maze was only acquiring more twists and turns each year.

"Let's see how much Jacen perks up with Lumiya gone," he said.

Wait, did I just bless an assassination? "And with Alema out of the way, then Leia and Han can come back into the fold, and we can face this war as a family again."

Mara patted his cheek with a regretful smile and set a droid on cleaning the dishes. She spent the rest of the afternoon assembling and checking an array of weapons that definitely didn't come from a civilized age.

"I never knew you had one of those," he said, pointing to a blaster that had the widemouthed muzzle of a grenade launcher. "How are you planning to use it?"

"With a flechette cartridge. Let's see her try a lightwhip on that."

"Do you want to take my shoto?"

"You offering?"

"Good-luck token, maybe."

"Under-the-rib-cage token, more like. Unless that's all durasteel, too."

This was his wife. Sometimes he caught a glimpse of the woman she once had been, and she was a stranger for a second or two.

"How are you going to track her? She hides very-well.'"

"I can hunt very well." Mara took the shoto hilt and spun it like a blade. "A little bait, a little investigation, and a little Force help."

She ignited the energy beam. "Plus, if Alema is trailing after her, as seems to be the case, then one of them is going to slip up and show herself."

"Lumiya doesn't slip up."

"Well, she's not running the galaxy right now, so I guess she does sometimes . . ." Mara spun the shoto into the air and caught it by the hilt as it fell. "And she keeps showing up lately, so I'll be ready."

"Just keep me informed where you are, okay?"

"You'll know." Mara gave him her best I-know-what-I'm-doing grin.

"And who better to go after a former Emperor's Hand than another one?"

"You did that before . . ."

"And that was before I had a son to worry about." The grin faded.

"I'm much more dangerous now I have a cub to protect."

Luke had no doubt about that. But it was the first time in his life that he regretted not killing someone when he'd had the chance.

chapter four

To: Chief of Defense Logistics

From: Supreme Commander, Galactic Alliance Defense Force CC: Chief of State; OC GAG; Head of Defense Procurement Re: Fleet supply and procurement concerns

The shortfall in supplies in theater and the failure of equipment to meet standards are intolerable. You are to give Colonel Solo, OC GAG, every cooperation in resolving this situation as rapidly as possible.

This is to be your top priority, and Colonel Solo is authorized to use any means necessary to achieve it.

Admiral Cha Niathal, SC GADF

DEFENSE PROCUREMENT AND SUPPLY AGENCY, CORUSCANT

"Are you sure?" Jacen had no reason to disbelieve a legal-analyst droid. Metal lawyers were even more meticulous than flesh-and-blood ones.

HM-3 clunked along beside him as they ambled up the apparently interminable corridor to the offices of the head of procurement, explaining the hurriedly assembled data as they went. Jacen believed in understanding the enemy, and that meant grinding through the tedium of small print. He was set on taking a lightsaber to a planet-sized ball of red tape.

"Yes, sir, this is routine." HM-3 reminded him a little of C-3PO—humanoid in shape, with a necessarily pedantic personality—but he was a sober dark gray and had a reassuring air of solid professional authority.

"A piece of legislation that's overdue for reform. Would you like the full explanation, or a simplified lay-being's version?"

"Consider me as lay as they come."

"As the legislation stands, it takes the agreement of the Defense Council to change the regulations on procurement. It's designed to stop civil servants from bending the rules to line their pockets. Or to stop anyone from commissioning an entire army and its accompanying fleet and weapons without the Senate's knowledge, which I do believe happened not so long ago . . . you might want to look back at the final years of the Republic, sir."

Jacen mulled that over and tried to strip it down to basics. "So Senators have to vote on what flimsi to purchase and what flavor dry rations to serve to the troops. Monumental waste of time and expense, if you ask me."

"I admit it involves top-level decision makers in very low-level decisions, sir. But it's the law. Every time you want to change something about supplies, or any other minor administrative issue, you need Chief Omas or Admiral Niathal or someone else equally senior to rubber-stamp it. It's the same for other departments—health, education, all of them."

HM-3 seemed apologetic. Jacen had little patience with people who found comfort in impenetrable rules and ritual: He wanted things done.

"I don't want to take every complaint about hydrospanners and fuel inductors through committees." How did I ever become the procurement go-to guy? Is Niathal sidelining me? Never mind. I'll learn a lot. "Is there a way around this?"

"Actually, there is."

"Go on."

"It's a simple matter of giving appropriate officers of the GA—in the most general sense—the power to change regulations. To remove the requirement for every cough and spit to be dealt with by Senators."

"How do we do that?"

"By removing the requirement for approval by Defense Council members. Shall I draft an amendment, sir?"

"How does that work?"

"I draft a request for a change in the existing law to relieve regulatory burdens, so that order-making powers can be devolved to appropriate persons such as senior military officers and ministers of state without the need to refer the issue to committees, councils, or even the full Senate." HM-3 shuddered. It was a very human touch. "Give them something to debate, and the more trivial it is, the more hours they'll spend on it, because they can grasp the small concepts better, you see."

"Yes, but what happens to the amendment? And how long is that going to take?"

"If I table it today, then it goes before the weekly Policy and Resources Council in two days' time, and, as an appropriate person who already has the Chief of State's sanction, you can start changing what you need the next day."

Jacen clasped his hands behind his back and thought about it. This was making a new law to allow him to change laws.

Bizarre.

"I wonder how much the Defense Department spends on carpeting," HM-3 said peevishly, scanning the floor. Droids preferred smooth surfaces.

"Here's one area where they could economize."

As he walked, Jacen was calculating how many simple decisions were mired in approvals, but he had the sensation of someone trying to get his attention. It was wholly in his head: he wondered if it was the voice again, and then realized it was his common sense screaming to be heard.

You're changing laws about changing laws. Think about that.

Jacen only had a vague idea about what use he might make of that beyond getting supplies moving, but it struck him as a promising area to address.

"What would I be limited to?" he asked.

"Well, there has to be a fail-safe in the wording or you'll never get P and R to agree to it, but if I were to cap the scope of this, say that the existing budget can't be exceeded, then that would satisfy them."

Legislation was terminally boring. No, it should have been. But something in it was forming a hard ball of an idea in Jacen's mind.

"Would it be possible to word it so that if I come across any more stupid red tape in the process, I can change that, too? Even if I don't know where I'm likely to find it? I don't want some jobsworth holding up vital supplies because I didn't specify the right subsection of some obscure regulation."

"That would make it somewhat . . . open-ended."

"But it's just administration. It's not the constitution or a common charter."

HM-3 ground his gears quietly. "I'll word it genetically so that you can change any administrative procedure you need to. The other fail-safe is that only authorized individuals can make use of this, and that can be limited to whomever the Chief of State decides. So there'll be no spending sprees on secret armies, and only a few very visible, accountable people can make use of it. That will reassure the P and R

members." HM-3 went silent for a moment, consulting his agenda link. "I do believe the day after tomorrow is a very, very busy day for P and R, sir. I think the amendment will get through rather more quickly than usual."

It was a good day to bury the Legislative and Regulations Statute Amendment. Jacen smiled.

"You'll have to tell me more about how this fits in with the emergency measures legislation that Chief Omas already enacted."

"Full explanation, or—"

"—the lay-being's executive summary, please."

"The three of you can do anything you need to for the duration of the war. With Admiral Niathal, you are effectively a triumvirate. I have yet to hear Senator G'vli G'Sil take note of that, despite his position as head of the Security Council. The Defense Council is simply nodding everything through—when it actually meets, of course."

The thought took Jacen aback. He had his own plans for upending the galaxy, but they were large-scale, strategic, and focused on order, justice, and the benign application of military might. The petty minutiae of bureaucracy had never crossed his mind as a weapon in the battle for order.

He'd spent five years learning the most arcane Force techniques in the galaxy, but—again—he didn't have to use a single Force skill to gain power this time. It was simply a matter of using psychology to manipulate people around him.

This is what makes Jedi weaker and lazier. They instantly resort to Force techniques, without thinking.

HM-3 didn't have to remind him to look at the fall of the Republic.

In his desire to understand the environment that had turned his grandfather from Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader, he'd examined that final decade. Palpatine seemed to have grabbed most of his power by brilliant manipulation and understanding of people's weaknesses, not simply by channeling the power of the dark side.

Jacen and the droid reached the mighty carved doors of the procurement center. They were almost as fine as the doors to Chief Omas's office. No —they were actually more opulent. Jacen turned to his infallible legal adviser.

"Do you think it's wrong that we're effectively a triumvirate, Aitch-Em?" Jacen asked. "Undemocratic?"

"I'm not programmed for right and wrong, sir." HM-3 sounded a little

disappointed, as if Jacen hadn't fully understood the complexity of his art. "I can tell you only what's legal and illegal, because they have definitions. Right has no parameters. Justice doesn't, either, nor good. Flesh has to make those decisions."

"Flesh makes a different decision on those every day, my friend."

Jacen put his hand on the controls, and the splendid relief of an ancient Coruscanti cityscape split into two to admit him into the procurement offices.

I can change a law to let me change laws.

But can I use the law that lets me change laws to change that law itself?

He thought for a moment that he was enjoying a few childish seconds of playing at circular logic. Then it struck him he'd just had an insight of significant proportions.

"Colonel Solo," said the head of the procurement agency. Tav Velio was an edgy human male who looked in need of a good meal. "I've tasked one of my assistants to investigate the shortages. It might simply be a case of delays in the process."

"Is there anyone ahead of the fleet or the GAG in this line?" Jacen asked.

"Our suppliers do have other clients."

"I hope they're on our side."

"We source our equipment from allies."

"Are your people moving as fast as they can?""

"Of course they are, Colonel Solo. We're also looking for ways to streamline the process."

Jacen smiled. "So am I." He looked around the office. It wasn't gold-plated,