The days grew longer and warmer until the summer heat became a thick blanket over Lothal, leaving the grasslands shimmering in the afternoon sun. There was no news of Dhara—nothing from the Imperial ministries Zare’s parents checked with every day, and nothing from Merei’s secret explorations of any database she could break into.
Dhara Leonis had simply vanished.
When Zare decided what he needed to do, Beck was gone, too; he didn’t respond to his comlink or to messages sent to his datapad.
Beck’s parents told Zare he was spending the month riding jumpspeeders around Lothal with his cousins as a break before starting work as a harvest supervisor in the fall. But Zare didn’t believe that. He couldn’t imagine Beck out for an extended joyride, not with everything that had happened.
In the marketplace one day, Zare caught sight of Frid Kelio, who let out a Rodian honk of surprise, then pushed his way through the crowd. Zare waited anxiously for his former SaberCat teammate, wondering if Frid knew why he’d been transferred out of AppSci, and if he blamed Zare.
But Frid gave Zare a friendly clout on the shoulder. “Beck said you gave that lousy svaper Fhurek a black eye,” he said. “Wish I could have seen that.”
“He had it coming,” Zare said. “Have you talked to Beck recently?”
Frid looked away, his face mottled a darker green.
“Frid, I need to talk to him,” Zare said. “Would you please just tell him to contact me?”
A couple of days later Zare was leaving his parents’ apartment when someone called his name. He saw a figure standing in the shadows of the service alley. It was Beck, hooded and wearing goggles.
Zare looked around. The streets were empty; everyone had fled inside seeking shelter from the heat. He stepped into the alley.
“I figured I’d better come to you before you put up a public message on the HoloNet,” Beck said, looking annoyed. “Well, you’ve found me. Now what do you want?”
“I know what you’re doing,” Zare said. “You’re not out sightseeing in the grasslands, or whatever it is you told your mother.”
“You’re right, I’m not. So what?”
“I want to join you,” Zare said. “I want to help. You heard about my sister. She didn’t run away. She’d never do that to us. The Empire did something with her.”
“Your sister’s dead, Zare,” Beck said.
Zare shook his head, biting his lip hard. “I don’t believe that.”
“Don’t believe it, or won’t believe it? She ran away, right? Just like the farmers in the Westhills. Their relatives were told they ran away, too, you know—a whole bunch of people who’d never traveled farther than Capital City in their entire lives suddenly had an urge to see the galaxy. There’s a lot of that going on these days.”
“Dhara’s not dead,” Zare insisted. “I don’t know how I know, but I do.”
“Zare, I hope you’re right—I mean that. But there are only a few of us working together so far. We can’t search the galaxy for your sister.”
“I know,” Zare said. “I just…you were right, Beck. They need to be stopped. And I want to help stop them.”
“And how are you going to do that, Zare? Are you willing to plant bombs? Shoot stormtroopers?”
Zare hesitated, then looked down at the ground.
“Didn’t think so,” Beck said. “Despite everything that’s happened, you’re still the little Imperial who thinks the galaxy is supposed to be a nice place. Leave me a message when you understand the stakes.”
And with that, he stalked off down the alleyway, leaving Zare alone.
The next day Merei commed Zare, frantic.
“It’s Beck,” she said. “I just got a message from him, thanking me for being a friend if he doesn’t return. Did you find him? Do you know what he’s doing?”
“No, but I can guess,” Zare said. “I have to go.”
“I want to go with you.”
“No,” Zare said. “That will just put more people in danger. And you can be more help by monitoring the security transmissions. Comm me if you hear anything.”
He clicked off his comlink, grabbed a pair of macrobinoculars, and raced out of the apartment, ignoring Auntie Nags’s questions. Downstairs, he trundled Beck’s unregistered jumpspeeder out of the garage where he’d left it. A few minutes later he was racing down the highway at an unsafe speed, the wind threatening to shove him off the powerful jumpspeeder.
Zare passed the narrow bridge, then took the larger, crossing over the river. The mine was still in operation on the ruined plain, pockmarked with deep pits and cloaked by blowing dust. The fences were gone, though. Zare guessed the Empire’s brutal crackdown had eased its security concerns.
The orchards through which he and Beck had fled were still there, but as he neared the site of the camp Zare saw surveyor droids moving through the jogan trees, leaving broken branches in their path. He piloted the jumpspeeder through the disheveled orchard, avoiding the droids, and found the farmers’ camp was gone. The site was covered with heavy equipment: clearly the Empire’s mining operations had now expanded west, to chew into new ground.
Zare raised his macrobinoculars and scanned the site, hoping for some sign of Beck. He saw nothing at first, but then a plain canvas satchel lying next to a jogan stump caught his eye.
Zare parked his jumpspeeder next to the bag and gingerly opened it.
It was full of detonators.
Then he was lying on his back, blinking at the spots in his vision, ears ringing. His first thought was that the detonators had gone off—but that couldn’t be, because he’d be dead. He scrambled up on his elbows, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. The limbs of mining droids were scattered around, still sparking and twitching, and thick smoke rose from the center of the mining site.
A landspeeder raced down the roadway leading back up into the hills. It was listing to one side; one of its repulsorlifts was damaged. Zare raised his macrobinoculars, trying to blink the spots out of his vision, and zoomed in on the speeder.
Beck was leaning out of the back window with a blaster in his hand. He fired a barrage of shots.
Behind the speeder came an Imperial troop transport.
Zare pressed himself into the dirt as the troop transport accelerated, chasing the speeder up into the orchards. Then he grabbed the satchel and slung it over his shoulder, leaping on the jumpspeeder. He started the engine, stomped on the throttle…and the engine died. He’d flooded it.
He forced himself to count to five, hands shaking with adrenaline, then started the speeder again, depressing the starter gently this time. The engine sputtered, then caught, and Zare shot off into the trees, spraying a fan of dirt behind him.
It was easy to follow the two vehicles: thick dust and churned-up dirt marked the path they had taken through the mining camp on what had once been the Ollets’ land. Blinded by dust, Zare lost the path and had to cut hard left to avoid sailing into a deep pit, then swerve right to avoid a gang of miners and a construction droid. Coughing convulsively, he wiped a sleeve across his sweaty face and spat out dirt.
Auntie Nags is going to be furious, he thought, then laughed at himself.
They were past the mining camp now; he could see the speeder and the troop transport racing down the hillside toward the new bridge across the river. He was gaining on them. The speeder was listing badly, and Zare could feel the concussive thumps of the troop transport’s dorsal cannons. Those were anti-vehicle guns, Zare remembered—much more powerful than the antipersonnel guns on either side of the vehicle’s prow.
A crater bloomed to the right of the fleeing speeder, sending liquefied ferrocrete into the air. It rained down, smoke rising from the ground where it landed.
Zare measured the distance between the two vehicles, then looked from Beck’s speeder to the bridge. His friend wasn’t going to make it.
He pushed harder on the throttle and the jumpspeeder growled and lunged forward. The jumpspeeder wobbled as he let go of the controls with one hand, hoping he wouldn’t fall off. He fumbled in the bag and emerged with a detonator in his fist.
The troop transport was directly ahead of him now. Zare thumbed the activator on the detonator. His comlink began to buzz. He glanced down at it, startled, then looked up and flung the detonator at the rear of the Imperial vehicle. It bounced in the roadway and disappeared under the transport.
A moment later flame erupted from underneath the transport, knocking it off the road in a crazy spin. Zare braked frantically, feet skidding on the roadway, trying to blink away sweat. The transport came to a halt, facing the way it had come, between Zare and the bridge.
He stomped on the throttle and cut hard to the left, racing along the polluted river. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Beck’s speeder had crossed the new bridge and was shrinking to a dot in the distance.
An explosion ripped open the ground to the left of him, sending a shudder through his jumpspeeder. He ducked, then stomped on the throttle again, weaving back and forth to throw off the gunner’s aim.
Another explosion punctured the roadway behind him, close enough that he could feel the heat on his back. He tried to think of a way to evade the transport and double back to the bridge, but it was hopeless. He was going to be caught or killed.
The bridge!
Zare looked to his right, eyes tracing the murky river, and found the narrow old bridge ahead of him. He cut left, then back to the right, then braked hard, one foot skidding along the ground. The troop transport shot past him, its gunner struggling to reorient the topside cannons as Zare aligned the jumpspeeder with the old bridge and stomped on the throttle.
The flexi-tape was a thin orange line across his path. Zare wondered how tough it was: would it knock him off the jumpspeeder, or cut him in two? He hit it with his chest and it stretched, then parted with a pop. A moment later he burst through the second length of tape, leaving the ends fluttering behind him.
Zare risked a look over his shoulder and saw the transport come to a stop on the far side of the bridge it was too wide to cross. Before the gunner thought to fire, Zare mashed the throttle down again and streaked down the highway through the fields, fleeing for Capital City.
It was Merei who had commed him, to warn him of a security alert in the area of the orchardlands.
Zare woke up repeatedly that night, waiting for her to comm him again, this time with worse news…or for stormtroopers to arrive at the door. Would they have the satchel he’d thrown away a few kilometers from the bridge? Ask about the unregistered jumpspeeder they’d tracked to the Leonis garage? Or would they simply show up with Beck, already wearing binders?
But no one came. And no one commed him until Beck did the next morning.
“Meet me at the grav-ball grid,” he said, then hung up.
Zare rode his own jumpspeeder to AppSci, mind screaming that this was a trap. And when he saw Merei parking her own jumpspeeder, he could barely breathe.
“I’m so glad you’re all right,” she said, rushing to embrace him. “Beck commed me, too. Do you know what’s going on?”
No stormtroopers awaited them on the grid. There was just Beck, standing in the center of the AppSci logo with his head down.
“The Empire identified our speeder,” he said simply. “They’re searching for the occupants now.”
“Oh, no,” Merei said. “Beck, you have to hide! Get out of sight!”
“That’s what I’m going to do. Has anyone contacted you?”
“No,” Zare said. “Maybe they didn’t get a good look at you.”
Beck just shook his head. “Some of the others have already stopped responding to messages. It’s only a matter of time before they find me, too.”
“Beck—” Zare began.
“Listen to me, you two—this will have to be a short conversation. I was unfair to you the other day, Zare. You do understand the stakes. But you were right about the Empire. You both were. It’s too powerful to take on openly. What we did was a mistake.”
“You don’t mean that,” Zare said.
“I don’t mean we shouldn’t fight,” Beck said. “It’s just that the time isn’t right yet. The Empire will crush any open resistance. You were lucky to escape, Zare. But you won’t get that lucky again. And, Merei…you’ve got to be careful. Security is getting better all the time. They’ll detect you snooping, and trace it back to you.”
“And when will the time be right?” Zare asked.
“Soon,” Beck said. “The more the Empire tightens its grip, the more people will feel the squeeze—and realize it’s fight back or be crushed. A real resistance will emerge. And when it does, they’ll need people on the inside, who can help them.”
“People who have the Empire’s playbook,” Merei said.
“Yes,” Beck said, looking at Zare. Then his eyes turned to Merei. “Along with people who can scout the other team.”
“You think I should go to the Academy after all,” Zare said.
“If you really want to help, yes.”
“That’s crazy,” Merei said. “Zare’s sister disappeared because she went to the Academy, remember?”
“I know,” Beck said. “But if there’s an answer to what happened to your sister, you’ll find it in there, not out here.”
“It doesn’t matter, because I already told them no,” Zare said. “They’ll never take me back now.”
“That’s not true,” Merei said quietly, almost unwillingly. “They will take you back. Remember how your status changed when your sister’s did? How you were accepted before anyone else was, despite Fhurek’s letter? They want you, Zare. They want you there.”
Beck nodded.
“You guys have always been a good team,” he said. “You’ll figure it out. And now I really do have to go. I doubt we’ll see each other again. But you’ve been good friends. I’m sorry I didn’t always realize that. But I won’t forget it now.”
When Zare returned home his mother was at the kitchen table, staring down into a bowl of fruit, while his father had gone to the ministry to catch up on reports.
Zare swallowed nervously, then turned to Auntie Nags.
“Auntie Nags, I need you to shut down,” he said. “Mom and I are going to have a private conversation.”
The nanny droid’s photoreceptors flared red as Zare’s mother looked up, surprised.
“Zare Leonis,” Auntie Nags said. “I was programmed to be discreet.”
“And I’ve learned to be cautious. Please don’t make me give you an order.”
Auntie Nags fluttered her hands in indignation, but then her photoreceptors went dark.
“What is it, Zare?” his mother asked in a small voice.
“Dhara didn’t run away,” he said.
“I know that.”
“No—I mean, I can prove it.”
And then he told her about the farmers, and the status changes, and how he’d been accepted before anyone else. And about what he had decided to do.
“No, Zare,” his mother breathed. “No, no, no. It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s the only way, Mom!”
“No, it isn’t! Stop being crazy! I’m not losing you too, Zare!”
“You won’t,” Zare said. “The answers we need are in the Academy. They won’t be able to take me by surprise, like they did Dhara. Unlike her, I’ll have help. And if I get even a hint that they’re coming for me, I really will run away. I promise you.”
His mother looked at him in astonishment, her eyes wide, her mouth hanging open. She closed her eyes for a long moment.
When she opened them again, her gaze was steely and determined.
“We can’t tell your father,” she said.
Merei was right: Zare’s refiled application was quickly accepted. When they got the news, Zare and his mother agreed that making things look right would require another party—though this would be a more somber affair, with a smaller guest list.
The preparations went smoothly, with Auntie Nags discreetly not mentioning that she’d been so rudely shut down, though her photoreceptors briefly flared red whenever she looked at Zare or his mother. The only snag came a couple of hours before the guests arrived, when Tepha discovered they were out of jogan-fruit.
“It’s been in short supply all summer,” she said. “Could you run down to the marketplace, Zare?”
Zare searched through the warren of stalls and stands, trying not to let his gaze linger on the white towers of the Academy looming over the marketplace. It took him nearly fifteen minutes to find any jogan, and the price was ridiculously high. He handed his credits to the vendor, only to find the man looking over Zare’s shoulder, brows etched with concern.
Zare turned and watched a troop transport glide to a halt in the middle of the marketplace. It settled with a sigh of repulsorlifts and an Imperial officer disembarked, followed by a squad of stormtroopers.
They began striding toward Zare.
He knew there was nowhere to run and simply waited.
The stormtroopers scanned the line of stalls, with one trooper’s armored mask seeming to linger on Zare’s face. Then they hurried past him, heading for a shuttered shop. As shoppers and merchants watched, the troopers levered open the door.
“DX-578! Remember your search procedure!” the officer yelled.
A minute later the troopers emerged with three men whose hands were bound behind their backs. The third was Beck.
The stormtroopers marched their prisoners past Zare, close enough that he could have touched them.
Beck’s eyes jumped to Zare, and he offered him a flicker of a smile. Zare looked at the armored faces of each of the troopers as they passed. They were all alike. The troops led Beck and his two companions to the rear of the troop transport, then shoved them inside as the hustle and babble of the market resumed.
“Kid!” the vendor barked, yanking irritably on Zare’s sleeve. “You forgot your jogan-fruit!”
It was a beautiful evening on Lothal. Through his bedroom window Zare could smell seedpods and blossoms in the air.
Auntie Nags stopped fussing with his tunic, inspected him, and declared him ready for viewing. He looked at himself in the mirror and found a perfect young Imperial looking back.
And that’s what I will be, he promised his reflection. I will enter the Academy, say the right things, and succeed. I will learn how the Empire works. I will find Dhara. And I will wait for the resistance to develop, for someone to rebel.
And then I will help those rebels bring the Empire down.
He nodded and walked up to the top deck, shaking hands with ministers and bureaucrats and neighbors. Commandant Aresko and Grint arrived and began monopolizing the trays of dainties that Auntie Nags brought around. Merei hugged him, her smile faltering slightly. Standing by the railing, Lieutenant Roddance nodded at him, and Zare forced himself to look the young officer in the eye and nod back.
And then Governor Pryce and her attendants were there, making their way through the guests to where Zare waited with Merei. His father stood on one side of them, somber but proud. His mother stood on the other, her thoughts her own.
The governor’s aide hushed the crowd and she spoke briefly. She saluted the Leonises for their dedication to the Empire, and promised that the search for Dhara was not over. And then she turned to Zare.
“Congratulations on your appointment to the Academy,” she said. “We’re all honored by your example, Zare. And I’m looking forward to finding out how you’ll be of service to the galaxy.”
Zare shook the governor’s hand and smiled.
“I’m looking forward to that, too,” he said.