Chapter Thirty-One The Last Chance
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The Last Chance
The Starfarer landed on the indigo soil with a sigh.
I had told the droids to duck into the research facility and behind cover in case anything happened. If bad came to worse, they could send out a distress call from the communication console.
I hoped Lady Sosha had gotten my message.
I hoped, if she’d gotten it, she wasn’t too late.
The gangway to the Starfarer lowered and settled on the ground with a hard thunk. I hoped to see Dad on the ramp, arms wide, telling me how worried he’d been, how I should never get separated again—a scolding I would have killed to hear.
Instead, it was my brother framed in the open cargo hull. Behind him, the Civil War Buffs stood like good little soldiers. Of course they did. Val raised his blaster at me—the one he’d sold the droids for.
I didn’t even need to feign hurt and confusion, because my brother had never pointed a blaster at me before, and even after everything, I could have sworn he never would.
But there he was in the doorway, dressed in a crisp dark uniform, a matching hat with the First Order insignia pulled low on his brow.
“What’s this?” I asked, my voice wavering.
His disappointed gaze turned cold as he moved down the gangway, flanked by Spectacles and all his friends.
And to think, I’d actually thought they were just guests.
They sure fooled me. Had they boarded the ship because of Val?
It seemed like it, the way they fell in line behind him.
They were each dressed in a similar dark uniform.
The sight of them sent my stomach turning.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked as he came down the ramp. “Where’s the crew? The guests?”
“They’re alive—safe, for the most part,” he added, and with his free hand dug into his uniform pocket and produced my master key. “I locked everyone in their rooms. Well, with the exception of a few people. Dad just can’t seem to take orders, you know?”
I tensed. “What did you do?”
He replaced the master key in his pocket. “What I’m asked to. Where’re the others, Arie?”
“Others?” I echoed.
He motioned to the facility. “Check in there,” he instructed his troops, who of course found the droids and forced them out at blaster point.
Veebee muttered, “Compensating much?” as she shuffled out with N2-0.
Val’s face pinched. “I sold them.”
“They’re worth a little more than a blaster,” I replied, eyeing the other weapons. “Or a few blasters, apparently. So I got a refund—ow!” I hissed as he grabbed me by the arm so tightly I’d bruise and dragged me in close.
“This isn’t a game, Arie.” I searched his face for any sign of the brother I’d known. He was in there somewhere, beneath this awful uniform. “There are powerful people who want powerful things.”
“So you turned to the First Order—”
“Do you think I wanted this?” he hissed, and his eyes widened.
He let go of me quickly, his jaw muscles feathering.
The dust—it was working. He just didn’t know what it was, why he was compelled to tell the truth, if he talked at all.
He shook his head. “You could have done the right thing. But then our stupid father sent you that message—he’s always ruining everything. ”
My face hardened. He really didn’t know me at all. “I’m not going to abandon the people I love.”
“And look where that got you! Locked up on a ship. You can’t even tell Dad about your cute little stowaway you met out in the city. You have to lie about it, Arie!”
I steeled myself. “So you left and joined a few zealots who can’t just let the past go?”
He gritted his teeth. At least I still knew how to get under his skin.
It was a little harder now, but all I had to do was dig.
“The First Order is everywhere,” he hissed.
“If we’re going to survive, we can’t be on the losing side.
The galaxy isn’t like in your silly little holonovels.
Love isn’t going to save us, Arie. We have to save ourselves.
” Then he turned back to his men and waved them inside.
“Take the droids. Scan their memory banks. I’m sure they know where that stowaway went. ”
His men began to drag the droids away. I fought to get out of Val’s grip, but his fingers just dug into my arm harder. “Don’t you dare hurt them!” I snarled, glaring at my brother.
He scowled. “Don’t look at me like that. They’re just droids. Unless you want to tell me where that stowaway went.”
“What stowaway? Ow! You’re hurting me,” I added with a wince.
His grip loosened a little. A muscle in his jaw twitched. “You helped him on Coruscant. My men told me. And you helped hide him on this ship.” My eyes widened. So the men who had chased us in the city—he had ordered them? Then…the junior officer Sian talked about…
I felt sick to my stomach.
“Now where is he?” he pressed, and began to raise his blaster. “Don’t make me regret this, Arie—”
Suddenly, and with an enraged cry, Veebee threw off the two men who held her. They tumbled down the ramp. She roared, “You are the architect of your own misery!”
N2-0 blipped in concern, trying to get free, but they couldn’t.
Val, startled, turned his blaster on Veebee. “Stay where you are!”
VB-35 stalked down the ramp. Her eyes were bright, twin moons boring into him. “If I am just a droid,” she snarled, “then you are just a slab of meat!”
He commanded the droid to halt, but she’d never been very good at obeying orders—not mine and certainly not anyone else’s. He shot at her shoulder and then her leg, blowing off bits of metal, but it didn’t even faze her.
Veebee was terrifying.
She shot her hand out and grabbed ahold of Valor’s neck. And she started to squeeze. He choked out a gasp. His fingers slid off my arm. I backed away as quickly as I could.
“Run, Ardent,” she said, holding my brother by his neck. “Onto the ship. Take it out of here. You’re fast. And if any of you try to stop her, he dies,” she went on to Val’s men, who weren’t quite sure what to do.
Val gasped. “Let—go—you defective—”
“Vee,” I said, “don’t do this.”
Because we knew the only way it would end. If I left on that ship, she wouldn’t be going with me. And neither would Val.
This was not what we’d planned at all.
She pinned me with her bright starlike gaze and said matter-of-factly, “Your brother will never destroy me.”
The next moment, a blaster bolt tore through the side of her face.