The Old Republic - Fatal Alliance by Sean Williams

Author:Sean Williams [Williams, Sean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, Space Opera, General, Star Wars Fiction, Adventure, Space Warfare, Good and Evil, Interplanetary Voyages, Alliances, Interstellar Travel, Science Fiction; Australian
ISBN: 9780345511324
Publisher: LucasBooks
Published: 2010-07-19T04:00:00+00:00

THE MOMENT THE air lock closed behind them, the puny envoy started to struggle. Ax strode on, her mind full of ways to lessen the inevitable consequences of her failure. She didn’t know what Darth Chratis had expected, but he was sure to turn this unexpected result against her. That she was finding it hard to think wasn’t helping.

“Listen to me,” the envoy called after her. “You have to listen to me!”

She didn’t slow down. She barely even heard him. Lema Xandret is dead, Stryver had said. Everyone down there is dead. She didn’t know why that pronouncement had made a difference, but it seemed to. Her family, her mother—what had happened to her father? She had never asked. Maybe he was dead, too, had died years ago, when she was a child. Maybe he was a Sith Lord who wouldn’t lower himself to be associated with a common woman. Maybe, she thought, just maybe …?

Impossible. She mocked herself for even thinking it. Darth Chratis was no kind of father to her, and never would be. She needed no father, just like she needed no family. If Stryver was right and the fugitives were all dead, that just made her life easier. She wouldn’t have to expend the energy finding and killing them, in the Emperor’s name.

“Please, I’m trying to tell you that I’m not who you think I am! We’re on the same side and have been all the time!”

The squawking of the envoy finally penetrated her consciousness. On the brink of entering the shuttle, she stopped and reached out one half-gripped hand.

He swept out of the guards’ hands and smashed into the air lock wall.

“Don’t even think of lying to me,” she said.

“I’m not.” The envoy was as pale as marble and his voice little more than a whisper, but he didn’t flinch as she approached. “I’m an Imperial agent.”

She activated her lightsaber and held it across his throat.

“You don’t look like a Cipher Agent. You’re not even fully human.”

Her contempt was ferocious. “All right. Not an agent per se, but an informer at least. And I am loyal regardless what species I am. Utterly loyal. I swear it.”

Ax didn’t move. She knew that many highly ranked Republic officers sometimes preferred nonhuman staff in the belief that this would protect them from surveillance. If this envoy had been turned, he would be highly prized by the Minster of Information.

“I tried to board your shuttle on Hutta,” he pressed on, beginning to stammer now, “but the guards t-turned me away.”

That much was true, and it made her hesitate. Ax couldn’t believe she was listening to him—and more, actually considering his story. But his brazenness and bravery in the face of certain death were persuasive. She had to admire his guts, even if she would see them sizzling if she found out that he was trying to trick her. It wasn’t impossible that he was a double agent placed by Satele Shan to lead her and her Master astray …

Ax smiled with her teeth.

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