Shadows of the Empire Read Free

he lost contact with the Force.
    Stop this!
he told himself.
    He took a deep breath, balanced uneasily, reached for the Force again.
    There, he had it. He steadied, started walking, one with the Force again, flowing.
    Halfway across the wire, he started to run. He told himself it was part of the test. He told himself that the Force was with him and he could live up to his name without fear, that anything was possible to one trainedas a Jedi Knight. It was what he had been taught. He wanted to believe it.
    He didn’t want to believe that he ran because he could feel the dark side walking the wire behind him, catfooted and evil, following him. Following like the memory of his face on Vader’s severed head, following and—
    —and gaining …
    X izor leaned back in his form-chair. The chair, which had a bad circuit he kept meaning to have repaired, took this move as an inquiry. Its voxchip said, “What is your wish, Prince Sheeezor?” It slurred his name, dragging out the first syllable. He shook his head. “Nothing save that you be silent,” he said.
    The chair’s vox shut up. The machineries within the cloned leather seat hummed and adjusted the support to Xizor’s new position. He sighed. He was rich beyond the income of many entire planets, and he had a malfunctioning form-chair that couldn’t even pronounce his name correctly. He made a note to have it replaced, now, today, immediately, as soon as he was finished with his business here this morning.
    He looked at the one-sixth-scale holoproj frozen in front of him, then up at the woman standing across the desk. She was as beautiful, if not as ethnic, as the two Epicanthix women fighters in the holograph between them. But her beauty was of a different order. She had long and silky blond hair, pale and clear blue eyes, an exquisite figure. Normal human males would find her attractive. There were no flaws in Guri’s face or form, but there was a coolness about her, and that was easily explained if you knew the reason: Guri was an HRD, a human replica droid, and unique. She could visually pass for a woman anywhere in the galaxy, could eat, drink, and perform all of the more personal functions of a woman without anybody the wiser. And she wasthe only one of her kind programmed to be an assassin. She could kill without raising her ersatz heartbeat, never a qualm of conscience.
    She’d cost him nine million credits.
    Xizor steepled his fingers and raised an eyebrow at Guri.
    “The Pike sisters,” Guri said, glancing at the holo. “Genetic twins, not clones. The one on the right is Zan, the other is Zu. Zan has green eyes, Zu has one green and one blue eye, the only noticeable difference. They are masters of
teräs käsi
, the Bunduki art called ‘steel hands.’ Twenty-six standard years old, no political affiliations, no criminal records in any of the major systems, and, as far as we are able to determine, completely amoral. They are for hire to the highest bidder, and they have never worked for Black Sun. They have also never been defeated in open combat. This”—she nodded at the unmoving holoproj image again—“is what they do for fun when they aren’t working.” Guri’s voice was, in contrast to her appearance, warm, inviting, a rich alto. She activated the hologram.
    Xizor smiled, revealing his own perfect teeth. The holo had shown the two women mopping the floor with eight Imperial stormtroopers in some rat’s nest of a spaceport bar. The soldiers had been big, strong, well trained, and armed. The women weren’t even breathing hard when they finished. “They’ll do,” he said. “Make it happen.”
    Guri nodded once, turned, and left. She looked as good from behind as she did from the front.
    Nine million and worth every decicred. He wished he had a dozen more like her. Unfortunately, her creator was no longer among the living. A pity.
    So. Two more handpicked assassins now under his command. Assassins with no ties to Black Sun, not before and,