Invincible (8 page)

It had all been a lie. Even after what Allana had done, Caedus still loved her. He was her father, and he would always love her, no matter how much she hurt him. He had been wrong to try to escape that. Caedus needed to hold on to that love
whatever
it cost him, to cling to that love even as it tore his heart apart.

Because that was how Sith stayed strong. They
needed
pain to keep the Balance, to remind them they were still human. And they needed it so they would not forget the pain they were inflicting on others. To make the galaxy safer,
everyone
had to suffer—even Sith Lords.

And so there would be no angry outbursts when he confronted the Moffs over their unauthorized adventures, no demonstration killings, no Force chokings or threats to have his fleets attack theirs, no intimidation of any sort. There would be no consequences at all, for how were they to know of the worrisome things he had been seeing in his Force visions lately—the Mandalorian maniacs and the burning asteroids, his uncle’s inescapable gaze—if he failed to
tell
them? Whether blunder or master stroke, the taking of the Roche system was as much his doing as the Moffs’, Caedus saw now, and he was beyond punishing others for his mistakes. Starting today, Darth Caedus was going to rule not through anger or fear or even bribery, but as every true Sith Lord should, through patience and love and…pain.

Caedus finally crested the winding pedramp he had been ascending and found himself looking down a long tubular tunnel coated in the gray-yellow foamcrete the Verpine reserved for their royal warrens. At the far end—guarding one of the shiny new
beskar
-alloy blast hatches that had done absolutely nothing to stop the Remnant’s aerosol attack—stood a squad of white-armored stormtroopers. Their gray-striped shoulder plates identified them as members of the Imperial Elite Guard, and the two tripod-mounted E-Webs set along the walls suggested they were serious about preventing unauthorized access to the chamber beyond.

The stormtroopers were still turning in his direction, no doubt trying to decide whether the single black-clad figure striding toward them was anything to be alarmed about, when Caedus raised a gloved hand and made a grasping motion. The squad leader raised his own hand as though returning the greeting—then was knocked off his feet as both E-Web supply cables tore free of the power generators and came flying down the corridor with weapon and tripod bouncing along behind them.

The remainder of the squad swiftly moved to firing positions, dropping to a knee in the middle of the corridor or pressing themselves against the tunnel wall, and brought their blaster rifles to their shoulders. Caedus sent a surge of Force energy sizzling down the corridor, reducing the electronic opticals inside their helmets to a blizzard of static. They opened fire anyway, but most of the bolts went wide, and those that did not Caedus deflected with the occasional flick of a hand.

He was still ten paces away when the squad leader pulled his helmet off and, bringing his weapon to bear, began yelling for the others to do the same. Caedus raised his arm, catching the leader’s bolts on his palm and deflecting them harmlessly down the tunnel. As the second and third man prepared to open fire, he flicked a finger toward the leader’s blaster and sent it spinning into them. It slammed the second man into the wall and knocked the third’s weapon from his hands.

Caedus summoned the leader forward with two fingers, using the Force to bring the astonished soldier flying into his grasp.

“I have no intention of harming anyone beyond that door,” Caedus said, making his voice deep and commanding. “But I have no time to waste, so I won’t hesitate to kill
you
or your men. I trust that won’t be necessary?”

The sergeant’s eyes bulged as though his throat were actually being squeezed shut—which it was not—and his face paled to the color of his armor.

“N-n-no, sir. N-not at all.” The sergeant motioned for his men to lower their weapons. “S-s-sorry.”

“No apologies necessary, Sergeant,” Caedus said. “Obviously, you haven’t been informed of the new chain of command.”

Caedus set the sergeant’s boots back on the tunnel floor, then turned to look at each of the others in the squad. He made it appear that he was requiring each man to look into his yellow eyes, but actually he was Force-probing their emotions, looking for any hint of anger or resentment that suggested there might be a hero in the group. He was down to the last two when he sensed a fist of resolve tightening inside one.

“Don’t do it, trooper,” he said. “There aren’t enough good soldiers in the Alliance as it is.”

The fist of resolve immediately began to loosen, but the trooper wasn’t too surprised to say, “With all due respect,
Colonel,
we’re
not
Alliance soldiers.”

“Not yet.” Caedus gave him a warm smile and turned toward the blast hatch, presenting his back to the entire squad. “My escorts will be along shortly. Don’t start a firefight with them.”

When he felt the squad leader motion the hero and everyone else to lower their weapons, Caedus nodded his approval without turning around. Then he circled his hand in front of the blast door, using the Force to send a surge of energy through its internal circuitry until a series of sharp clicks announced that the locking mechanisms had retracted. A moment later, a loud hiss sounded from inside the heavy hatch, and it slid aside into the wall.

Caedus stepped through without hesitation and found himself looking down on a sunken conference pit where a couple dozen Imperial Moffs—most of the survivors of the slaughter aboard the
Bloodfin
—were rising to their feet, some reaching for their sidearms and others looking for a place to take cover. Across from them, a small swarm of insectoid administrators from other Verpine hives squatted on their haunches, their shiny heads cocked in confusion and their mandibles spread wide in an instinctive threat display.

“No, please.” Caedus extended his arms toward the Moffs and motioned for them to return to their seats—using the Force to compel obedience. “Don’t get up on my account.”

The Moffs dropped almost as one. Most landed in the chairs they had been occupying, but a couple missed and landed on the floor. Several of the aides standing behind the Moffs’ chairs were pointing hold-out blasters in his direction, looking to their superiors for some hint as to whether they should open fire or stand down. Caedus swept his arm up and sent them all flying out of the conference pit onto the surrounding service floor.

“I’m afraid this will be a confidential conversation,” he said. “Leave us.”

When the aides did not instantly obey, he gestured at one of those who had been pointing a blaster at him and sent the man tumbling out the hatch.

“Now.”

The remainder of the aides scrambled for the door, many without bothering to stand. Caedus watched them go, his attention divided between them and the Moffs, ready to pin motionless anyone who even thought about raising a weapon. Once the aides were gone, a simple glance was all it took to send the Verpine administrators scuttling after them, leaving him and the Moffs alone with a single huge Verpine with age-silvered eyebulbs and a translucent patch on her thorax where the carahide was growing thin. She showed no inclination to rise from her position at the far end of the conference table, where she lay stretched along a heavily cushioned throne pedestal.

“Jacen Solo, where will the hives ever gather the wealth to settle our account?” The Verpine spoke in an ancient, thrumming voice that seemed to resonate from the very bottom of her long abdomen. As the High Coordinator of the Roche system’s capital asteroid, she was effectively the hive mother and chief executive officer of her entire civilization, outranking even the Verpine’s public face, Speaker Sass Sikili. “First, you rescue us from the Ancient Ones, and now you come with your fleet to send away the whiteshells. Welcome.”

“Thank you, Your Maternellence. But the name now is Caedus.
Darth
Caedus.”

The hive mother inclined her head. “We have heard you went through a metamorphosis. It is hard to believe you were just a larva when you saved us before.” She unfolded an age-curved arm and gestured at the Moffs. “The hives will be happily rid of these wasps. Proceed.”

“I wish it were that simple,” Caedus said. He turned his attention to the Moffs, who were studying him with expressions ranging from impatience to annoyance, depending on whether they were brave, astute, or just plain foolhardy. “But you’re misinterpreting our presence. My fleet and I aren’t here to
free
the Roche system—we’re here to
hold
it.”

It was difficult to tell who was more outraged, the mandible-clacking hive mother or the grumbling Moffs. Caedus raised his hand and—when that failed to produce quiet—used the Force to muffle the clamor.

As soon as he could be sure of making himself heard again, he said, “This will be best for everyone. The conquest of the Roche system has given it a significance far beyond the value of its munitions factories.”

The hive mother raised her thorax off her couch and demanded, “What significance? The hives are neutral! We have nothing to do with your war.”

“You have been selling munitions to all sides—and profiting handsomely,” interrupted a combat-trim Moff with close-cropped gray hair. “That makes you a legitimate target.”

“Moff Lecersen makes a good point,” Caedus said. “And I
did
warn you that the Mandalorians lacked the strength to protect you.” Before the hive mother could argue, he turned to Lecersen. “But the Moff Council should have consulted with me before acting. There have been indications in the Force all along that this invasion would be a mistake.”

“Because you want the Roche munitions factories for yourself?” scoffed a youthful Moff.

Caedus recognized him from intelligence holos as Voryam Bhao. With his honey-colored complexion, curly black hair, and a sneering upper lip just begging to be ripped off his face, he looked even younger than the twenty-three standard years listed in his file.

“Spare us your dark prophecies,
Colonel
Solo,” Bhao continued boldly. “Everyone at this table sees what you’re trying to do.”

The bile began to rise in Caedus’s throat, but he reminded himself of his resolution and resisted the urge to snap the young Moff’s neck—as he had Lieutenant Tebut’s not so long ago.

Instead, he said in a calm, durasteel voice, “You really should listen more carefully, Moff Bhao.” He made a dipping motion with his index finger, and Bhao’s head sank toward the table as though he were bowing. “It’s Caedus now.
Darth
Caedus.”

If Bhao’s older peers were amused, they did not show it—not even in the Force. They simply glared at Caedus, and another of the Moffs—this one a round-faced man with a roll of red neck-flab hanging over the collar of his buttoned tunic—shook his head in open disapproval.

“We are all aware that you are very powerful in the Force, Darth Caedus,” he said. “But you seem to be forgetting that
we
are quite powerful in our own right. If not for us, that catastrophe at Fondor would have been the end of you
and
the Galactic Alliance.”

“Nor do we need to
consult
with you about anything,” Moff Lecersen added. “The last I checked, the Empire was an
ally
of the Galactic Alliance, not its territory. We don’t need your permission to conduct our operations…and we surely don’t need your fleets to hold what we take.”

Caedus brought his anger under control by reminding himself that he
deserved
such a rebuke. He had not failed at Fondor because of Niathal’s treachery, or his admirals’ lack of boldness, or even because of Daala’s surprise attack. He had failed because of his own blindness, because he had allowed his anguish over Allana’s betrayal to make him arrogant and selfish and vindictive.

And then, once his thinking had cleared, he began to see how the situation must look to someone who did not have the Force. To someone who could not look into the future and see Luke hunting him down, or see Mandalorian maniacs bursting from walls and asteroids burning as bright as stars, Caedus’s assertion might be hard to believe. Without such foresight, it might be easy to convince oneself that this lonely cluster of rocks could not be as important as all that—that the balance of an interstellar war could never hinge on what was about to happen
here.

After a moment’s silence, Caedus said, “You don’t believe me.” His tone was more disappointed than angry. “You think this is about spoils.”

Lecersen exchanged suspicious glances with several of the other Moffs, then asked, “You don’t really expect us to believe you came out here to
protect
us, do you?”

Caedus had to stifle a laugh. While he hadn’t been thinking of it in those terms, he realized that was
exactly
what he was doing here—protecting the Moffs and their crucial fleets.

“I suppose that
does
sound absurd.” Realizing that only events themselves would convince the Moffs of his sincerity, Caedus turned and started toward the exit. “The truth so often does.”

Ben had heard officials from the Reconstruction Authority speak of Monument Plaza as their crowning achievement—a fitting finale to the agency’s commission as the rebuilder of galactic civilization. Their technicians had spent three years sonichipping a two-meter crust of Yuuzhan Vong yorik coral off the classic Old Republic architecture that surrounded the square, and their artisans had dedicated
five
years to replicating—with original methods and materials—the thousands of ancient statues that had given the plaza its name.

Even KnobHead, the outcropping of bare mountaintop that was one of the only places on Coruscant where one could touch actual planetary surface, had been rescued: a team of RA geologists had spent more than a year scrubbing away a blanket of stone-dissolving lichen that may or may not have been a Yuuzhan Vong terraforming device. By the RA’s own very loud proclamation, the project was a stellar success, one more example of the job it had done restoring the galaxy to its pre–Yuuzhan Vong glory.