Star Wars: The New Rebellion by Kristine Kathryn Rusch Page B

streets of Pydyr, his legs spread, hands clasped behind his back. The air was warm and dry with a touch of salt, reminding him that an ocean loomed over the artificially created hills. In the arid heat, the death’s head felt like a mask. He was sweating beneath it, destroying its delicate calibration with his skin.
    He couldn’t remain on Pydyr long. The mask, a finely tuned instrument, only worked properly in certain environments.
    This wasn’t one of them.
    He hated to think of what it was doing to his face.
    But if he was uncomfortable, the troops were as well. The stormtrooper uniforms, cleaned up and repaired, looked fine. Menacing. The memories of the Empire were embodied in the white suits and the elaborate helmets, memories of power he hoped to arouse.
    Image was everything, as Pydyr once knew.
    The empty streets spoke of wealth. The sandstone blocks wore down after only a few days. The Pydyrians had a special droid designed specifically for street care, another designed for building wash. Pydyr’s wealth wasthe stuff of legends, its aristocratic class the inspiration for stories told all over this section of the galaxy.
    Almania had envied Pydyr for generations.
    But no more.
    Pydyr was his.
    The quiet was eerie. All he could hear was the sound of booted feet brushing against sandstone. The troopers were investigating each building, making certain no one remained.
    He had half-expected the stench of bodies decaying in Pydyr’s harsh sun, but Hartzig, the officer in charge, had been thorough. Pydyr’s aristocracy was dead, its bodies disposed of within hours. But the moon’s wealth remained.
    And he needed it. His timing couldn’t have been better. He tried to smile, but his skin slid beneath the mask. The lips still adhered, though.
    He whirled on a booted foot and walked into one of the buildings the troopers had already investigated.
    Pydyrian architecture was bold, with heavy brown columns and large, square rooms. Each surface was covered with decoration, some hand-painted by famous artists long dead, and others studded with tiny seafah jewels. In addition to the wealth accumulated over centuries, Pydyr had its own source. Seafah jewels were formed in the ocean in the shells of microscopic creatures. Kueller had ordered the seafah jewelers spared; it took a trained eye to locate most of the jewels on the seabed. A trained Pydyrian eye. The aristocratic Pydyrians had tried for generations to create droids that could locate the jewels, but no matter how good the droid, it couldn’t tell the jewel from centuries of hardened fish dung.
    He walked to a column and ran a gloved finger over the ridged jewels embedded in the baked surface. The jewels were bright spots of swirled color, some blue and green, some black and red, some white and orange, somea startling, lusterless yellow. Each jewel, no wider than the seam on his fingertip, had formed over the centuries from tiny seafah bodies discarded on the ocean floor.
    The column alone held two years of materials cost for him at the rate he had been spending it. He would probably increase his spending now. He had some large ships that needed rebuilding quickly. Unlike the Pydyrians, he was not one to hoard his wealth. He would have plenty more within a few months.
    “It feels as if someone just left.” Femon’s soft voice boomed in this empty place. She had apparently finished her tasks on Almania and decided to join him.
    “Someone did.” Kueller did not turn. His mask was slipping more than he liked. The mouth no longer moved with his. “They haven’t been dead very long, Femon.”
    “It seems so strange. I was in the eating wing, and there were still dishes on the tables.”
    “But the food was gone,” Kueller said. Cleaned up by the droids, as was anything organic and likely to decompose.
    “Of course.” She walked up behind him. He could feel her warmth against his back. He did not move, even though he wanted to. She was getting too presumptuous