IT WAS THE RARE space station that a Star Destroyer could dock with. Among Calcoraan Depot’s many arms was a long astrobridge that mated to an airlock on Ultimatum’s hull. Sloane figured Vidian had calculated some minuscule time savings in it.

He had met her at the connecting port. Greeted was too strong a word, since as usual he seemed to be engaged in silent comlink communication with someone else. Given how many sights they passed, their ride in the tramcar from node to node felt like a tour—only a tour in which the guide had almost nothing to say.

They passed an arrival area in which heavily plated robots were being disassembled. She had never seen anything like them. “What are those?”

“Droids.”

“Of what sort?”

“Heat-tolerant. The depot supplies projects across the sector, not just Gorse.”

She was anxious to show what she knew. “Heat-proof. Baron Danthe’s firm made them, then? He holds the monopoly.”

Vidian visibly bristled at the baron’s name. “Yes. Many firms supply the Empire, including his.”

“But those are employees of one of your firms taking them apart.” She recognized the logos on the uniforms.

“Standard maintenance.” Vidian accelerated the tramcar, indicating the subject was closed.

They rode on past several more junctions, offering opportunities for more glimpses of the depot’s shipments and more terse exchanges with Vidian. Sloane wondered if Vidian even remembered that he had asked her here.

“It’s an amazing place,” she finally said. “I appreciate the opportunity to see it.”

“You don’t find the logistical world too tedious?” he asked as their car began to slow.

“It’s what makes the Empire go.”

“Agreed,” Vidian said. He pointed to a small cabinet in the car. “You’ll want what’s in there.”

Sloane opened the compartment and withdrew a transparent face mask. Donning it, she saw a sign for landing station 77 up ahead. There were hazmat-suited workers all around the floor, taking meter-high cylindrical drums from pneumatic tubes and delivering them to freighters. “The explosives,” he said, gesturing. “Being loaded here and at several other nodes, for return to Cynda. Testing has shown that organics will move explosives more quickly than droids will. Fear is a useful motivator.”

“Of course.” She looked at Vidian, maskless. “Don’t you need—?”

“My lungs have been augmented to reject poisons.”

The car stopped, and Vidian stepped out onto the shipping floor. Sloane followed.

“The explosives must be deposited deep within Cynda using shafts drilled at precise locations.” He paused and looked at her. “My prep teams are already en route to the moon, but your military engineers could help speed things along.”

Now we’re to it, Sloane thought. “Of course. They’re at your disposal.”

“Fine.” A red-clad human stepped forward to Vidian, offering him a datapad. The count passed it to Sloane. “Convey these instructions to your crew.”

As a pair of workers passed carrying drums, another tramcar arrived from a different direction. Vidian gestured toward the loading floor. “I must finalize my report for the Emperor. Stay and educate yourself.” He walked toward the vehicle. Then he paused and looked back at her. “It’s good to have an ally in the military who understands what I’m doing.”

It was the closest thing to warmth she’d seen from him. She bowed her head. “Your lordship commands.”

—

“That’s our boy,” Kanan mumbled as he set a canister on the deck of the loading floor.

Hera nodded, anonymous in her orange getup but for the big bumps on the loose-fitting head covering where it protected her head-tails. “He hasn’t sent the report yet,” she said, her lovely voice muffled by the mask. “More luck that he’d drop by here!”

“If you can call it that.”

“Skelly!” Hera called out.

Kanan pivoted to see the hooded Skelly limping through the crowd of busy workers toward Vidian. Worse, he was carrying his pouch of explosives. His blood running cold, Kanan picked up the baradium canister and started walking quickly in that direction.

Skelly was a dozen meters away from Vidian’s back and reaching for his bag when Kanan interposed himself. He shoved the canister into Skelly’s hands. “Here you go, buddy. Back to the ship.”

Skelly, his expression invisible through the opaque faceplate, seemed poised to keep on going. “Don’t you see?”

Vidian? You bet, Kanan wanted to say. Instead, he twirled Skelly around. He nodded to one of the stormtroopers standing guard. “Sorry. Big place. Easy to get turned about.”

Skelly resisted as Kanan pulled him away from the tramline. Vidian was in the car already, seemingly none the wiser. “Skelly, have you lost your mind?”

“But he’s right there, Kanan!”

“Not now!” Kanan pulled him back across to where Expedient was parked. “You want to blow us all up?”

“It’s him or us.”

“That’d be him and us,” Hera said. Stepping over, she took the canister from Skelly’s hands while Kanan pulled the bag off his shoulder.

“Watch him,” Kanan said, turning to Expedient’s ramp. “I’m putting this where he can’t get it.”

Kanan shook his head as he locked the sack of bombs away. Time had only seemed to magnify the injuries Skelly had suffered at Vidian’s hands; it was getting harder to get the guy to see reason through his pain. As he disembarked, Kanan saw that Hera had stationed Skelly by the ramp with a datapad, pretending to take inventory. That was the best place for him, right now.

Zaluna approached carrying a canister as gingerly as she might carry an infant. “Will they blow up if you drop them?”

“Just a little,” Skelly said.

“He’s kidding,” Kanan said. “But if you do, make sure that hood is secure.” He didn’t want to imagine Zaluna on a chemically induced killing spree.

Minutes later, Hera returned from a nonchalant walkabout of the loading floor. “Okay, Vidian’s gone to the hub,” she said in a low voice. The layout was on Skelly’s datapad now, having been downloaded from a nearby terminal by Zaluna—but it had taken too long to get, and Expedient was nearly fully loaded. They’d be expected to leave the station after that.

“We need to slow this down,” Hera added. “And I don’t know how we can get over there.”

Kanan suppressed a chuckle. “And you were thinking you were going to have the run of the place.”

“I’m not taking this bunch through the ductwork,” she said, looking about. “And the stormtroopers are everywhere, making sure we’re where we’re supposed to be.”

Kanan looked back the way Vidian had departed. There were three parallel portals there: a service hallway, with the canister-delivering pneumatic conduit on the left and the tramcar tube opening on the right. Kanan put his finger in the air. “There’s the answer,” he said. “We change where we’re supposed to be.”

Before she could ask him anything, Kanan stepped away.

Whistling to himself, he casually strolled over to the conduit where canisters, gingerly moved along on a gentle cushion of air, appeared in the loading area. Glimpsing left and right and seeing no one looking, Kanan disappeared up the service tunnel.

He saw there what he’d seen when walking past earlier: a spindly-looking silver droid, minding the controls on the outside of the tube. Kanan walked past to a maintenance door on the tube’s exterior. With a twist, he snapped the hatch open.

“Wait!” the droid chirped. “You can’t do that!” It clanked toward Kanan—who then grabbed it, shoving it bodily into the meter-wide tube. With a shove, he jammed its torso backward, fully lodging it inside. Then he slammed the maintenance panel shut.

The blockage light was already flashing outside the opening when he stepped back out onto the loading floor. Kanan looked at the light and swore loudly. “The stupid thing’s stuck.”

Workers gathered at the opening. Sloane marched over. “What’s going on here?”

“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” Kanan said, peering up the dark opening. “Your dumb droid’s messed up the whole works!”

Sloane waved her hand dismissively. “Someone send for a repair crew.”

“Yeah, you do that,” he replied, pleased as he backed out that she could not see through the faceplate of his hazmat suit. He turned away from the group and marched back to Expedient.

“Wait,” the captain called. “Where do you think you’re going?” But Kanan was already heading up the ramp.

When he returned, he saw Sloane waiting with an armed stormtrooper. “Coming through,” he said, pushing Expedient’s spare hovercart down the ramp. Smaller than the one he’d ridden to survival on Cynda, it bounced on the air as he pushed it toward Sloane’s feet. “I’ve got a deadline, lady. Move it.”

Sloane stepped back, seemingly surprised by his presumption. “What are you doing now?”

“You’re paying us to move this stuff,” Kanan said. “If your depot can’t bring the junk to me, I’m going to it.” He looked back at Hera. “Come on, Layda. Bring your cousins.”

Hera saluted and gathered the others. They followed Kanan and his hovercart toward the service hallway, even as other loaders on the floor got the same idea and went for carts of their own.

Sloane shrugged in irritation and stepped back. She looked at the stormtrooper beside her. “This is not what I went to the Academy for.”