Free Star Wars: Scourge by Jeff Grubb

You seemed confused. Do you remember who you are?”
    “I am an H-Threepio unit in service of the Anjiliac clan. I report to Vago Gejalli. I am charged with …” It paused for a moment, and looked at Koax. “Do I know you?”
    “I don’t think so,” said Koax. “I brought you here, and was just about to crack your housing and see if anything had worked loose.” She held up a pair of calipers as proof of her intentions. “Then you started up again on your own. You gave me a start.”
    “Oh,” said the droid, adding that information to itsdatafiles. “I need to return to my post. They will be missing me.”
    “I don’t doubt they will,” said Koax. “Should I take you back to where I found you?”
    The droid tilted its head slightly, then shook it. “I need to return to my post. They will be missing me.” Gently it rocked forward and rose, as if trying to regain its bearings. It waddled to the door in the shuffle that all protocol droids seemed cursed with. It turned at the last moment and said, “Thank you.”
    “Do not mention it,” said Koax. “But do yourself a favor and have your master run a full scan on you. Some of your couplings may be loose.”
    The droid nodded and was gone; back to oversee the loading, its newly rebooted subroutines still trying to understand what had happened to it. Koax had no doubt that the droid would remember nothing—she had done this before, but the slightest glimmer of possible recognition made her uncomfortable.
    She went to the door and watched the droid move through the crowds of Swokes Swokes and other aliens, its movements getting more sure as it went. No, there would be no problem.
    One more of the half a hundred things that had to be handled on the behalf of Koax’s lord. Perhaps there would be a day where it would all just move smoothly. The arrival of the pallets of pressed and cut drugs, the distribution, the credits trickling back up through a dozen false fronts. Perhaps the Spice Lord would not need a fixer—a repair woman—someone who had the ability and coldhearted resolve to do what needed to be done to keep everything moving smoothly.
    It would be nice if it happened, even for one day, Koax realized. But it was an unlikely dream, and the Klatooinian returned to her half a hundred other tasks.

CHAPTER
FOUR

T O THE P LAGUE P LANET
    That evening Mander Zuma had a familiar dream, one that returned to him again and again over the years.
    He was on Coruscant, in the great Jedi library, situated near the flat-topped peak of the Jedi Temple. Here were the computer terminals, here the hallways leading to the holocron vaults, here the long shelves of holographic records, here the busts of the Lost Twenty—Jedi who had left the Order. Yet something was wrong. The great-vaulted rooms were empty, and somewhere in the distance a bell tolled in long, heavy peals.
    In the dream he walked. Sometimes it was hours, sometimes it only
felt
like hours. He met no one. Was this when the library was shut down, during the time of the Galactic Empire, when only the Emperor had access to the stacks, corrupting its volumes to meet his infernal needs? Was it sometime later? Where were the other Jedi? Would he find Master Tionne here?
    But there was nothing except his own footsteps and the sound of the bell.
    And then he noticed that the glowing holorecords of the stacks were slowly going out. Darkness was overtaking them, their blue illumination swallowed by oblivion. Turning, he saw that the rooms behind him were consumed by darkness that had now caught up with him. Around him the holorecords were dying.
    Mander in his dream reached for his lightsaber, and itfelt scaly and cold in his hand. Looking down, he saw that it had been replaced by a serpent, which now coiled around his wrist. The snake opened its mouth, and in the place of fangs there were twin lightsabers, glowing with a deep ruby light.
    And then he awoke and he was on Makem Te again, the heavy sun just poking up