Chapter One Malcontents and troublemakers will always be with us. They exist to dissent. A galactic cease-fire is exactly what most of them don't want, because it takes away the cover for the small and implacable grievances that give their lives meaning. If they happened to win--they would be lost in aimless despair. --Emperor Palpatine, on being told that opposition to Imperial rule was continuing on a number of worlds, despite the end of the Clone Wars. Commercial freighter Cornucopia, Mezeg Sector freight terminal; third week of the new era of the Empire Ny Vollen had never broken her word to anyone, but now seemed like a sensible time to start. I must be out of my mind. This is going to get me killed. And them, too. What was I thinking? She didn't even dare imagine the word; her two passengers were just them. The brief time she'd spent with Force-sensitives had made her nervous at a gut level, and she was now irrationally afraid that her thoughts, feelings, and anxieties were somehow broadcast to anyone with the skills to detect them. It was crazy, she knew . . . but she didn't know. She couldn't be sure her mind was still private territory. And that was what bothered her. Just keep your heads down and shut up, both of you. Is that so hard? You can do your Force stuff to make guards go away, right? Well, do it. The Mezeg terminal smelled of lube oil, blocked drains, and those sickly sweet hot buns that were sold with near-undrinkable caf wherever freight pilots gathered. She gnawed unenthusiastically on a bun, trying not to imagine what the hard chewy bits were made of. The scent of artificial vannilan always made her feel sick. Now it added to the turmoil in her stomach, threatening to overwhelm her as she stood under Cornucopia's fuselage waiting for her vessel to be inspected. She rehearsed a convincing reaction in case her hidden passengers were discovered. Never seen them before in my life, trooper. These refugees get everywhere, don't they? Thank you, trooper--now get them off my ship. But none of those lines would have convinced her, so she doubted they would persuade any of the Imperial stormtroopers searching vessels entering and leaving Mezeg. If the stowaways were discovered, then at least they had no idea where Cornucopia was headed. And she hadn't yet programmed a course for Mandalore, so there was no data to extract from the new computer and lead the authorities to Kyrimorut. At least the worst wouldn't happen. But I know exactly where we're heading, all the names, all the places, so the worst that can happen . . . will happen to me. She was far too old to be embarking on a life of lawlessness. If she was caught and interrogated, she had no idea how long she would hold out before she revealed what she knew of Kal Skirata's refuge for clone deserters. Her chances of escaping from the search team of four fit troopers, a civilian guard, and an akk hound looked close to zero. Come on. Are they really going to suspect me of anything? I'm a woman. I'm old. My ship's even older than I am. As to which of us is in worse shape . . . "Waste of kriffing time." The Rodian pilot in the line next to her had a tiny courier shuttle that couldn't have concealed a jackrab, let alone stowaways. He kept checking a chrono hanging from a fob on his jacket. "This is costing me." "Can't argue with the Empire," Ny said. "Suck it up." The white-armored stormtroopers didn't scare her. She knew they should have. They weren't Kal Skirata's adopted sons, the special forces clones she knew, like A'den, Mereel, and Corr. They might have looked identical under those helmets, but if she thought they were frie Excerpted from Imperial Commando by Karen Traviss All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
