were right, but it did not matter. She would get justice for Master Zallow, one way or another.
“Forgive me, Master,” she said. “Senator.”
“I understand,” Dar’nala said, and the group started walking again. “I understand all too well.”
ZEERID TRIED and failed to sleep in his chair for a few hours while Fatman pelted through the blue tunnel of hyperspace. Instead, he worried over his next job. More, he worried about the job after that, and the one after that. He worried about his daughter, about how she’d get the care she needed when he—he saw it as inevitable now—died on one of his jobs. The hole he lived in seemed to be getting deeper all the time, and he got no closer to digging his way out.
The instrumentation beeped a signal to indicate the end of the jump. He de-tinted the cockpit canopy as the ship came out of hyperspace and blue gave way to black.
The ball of Vulta’s star burned in the distance. Vulta was visible through the canopy, its day side shining like a green-and-blue jewel against the dark of space.
Arriving in Vulta’s system made him feel immediately lighter. The part of him that kept work at bay reasserted itself. The thought of seeing Arra always did that for him.
He engaged the engines and Fatman sped through the empty space between him and his daughter. When he neared the planet, he turned the ship over to the autopilot and waited for planetary control to ping him.
While waiting, he called up a news channel on the HoloNet. His small in-cockpit vidscreen showed images of the peace negotiations on Alderaan. He’d forgotten about them. Since mustering out, the war between the Empire and the Republic had become little more than background noise to him. He knew Havoc Squadron had accounted well for itself on Alderaan, but not much more.
Footage of the Sith delegation entering the council building filled the screen, commentary, then footage of the Jedi delegation doing the same. He thought he saw a familiar face among the Jedi.
“Freeze picture and magnify right.”
The vidscreen did as he’d ordered, and there she was—Aryn Leneer. She still wore her long, sandy hair loose, still had the same green eyes, the same hunched posture, as if she were bracing herself against a storm.
Which she was, Zeerid supposed, given the keenness with which she felt the emotions of those around her.
He hadn’t seen her in years. They had become friends during the months they’d served together on Balmorra. He’d come to know that she could fly pretty well and fight very well. He respected that. And because he fought pretty well and flew still better, he thought she had respected him. She never drank with Zeerid and the commandos, but she always hit the cantina with them. Just watching them.
Zeerid had assumed she came along because she liked the emotional temperature of the commandos when they drank—relief and joy at having survived another mission. She always had an openness to her face, an expression in her eyes that said she understood. Her openness had drawn drunk soldiers like sweet flies to nectar honey. They’d wanted to look in her eyes and confess something. Zeerid imagined it must have been exhausting for her. And yet she’d always been there for them. Every time.
The vid cut to a shot of Coruscant and a commentator said, “Until today, when an attack …”
The ship’s comm unit chimed receipt of a signal and Zeerid killed the vid. Expecting planetary control, he reached for it but stopped halfway when he realized it was the encrypted subspace channel he used with The Exchange.
He considered ignoring the hail. Speaking to Oren so near to Vulta would soil his reunion with Arra. He did not want business on his mind when he saw his daughter.
The steady, red blink of the hail continued.
He relented, cursed, and hit the button to open the channel, hit it so hard that he cracked the plastoid. He tensed for what he would hear.
“What?” he barked.
For a moment Oren said nothing, then, “If voice analysis didn’t show it to be you speaking, I might have assumed I’d hailed someone else.”
“I have something else on my mind right now.”
“Oh?” Oren paused, as if awaiting a more thorough explanation. Zeerid offered none, so Oren continued: “As I alluded to before, I have something urgent. Delivery requires someone with extraordinary piloting skills. Someone like you, Z-man.”
“I just finished a job, Oren. I need time—”
“This job will wipe your slate clean.”
Zeerid sat up