Victory's Price (Star Wars)

by Alexander Freed

  “I was born in a place called Cliff on the planet Polyneus, and the first time I flew I wanted to stay in the air as long as I could. I’m going to talk to you. I’m here if you want to say anything back.”

  * * *

  —

  Wyl spoke to Duchas Cherroi a long while, though he never received a response. It was awkward at first, but the words came more easily as he told tales of Home—of races among the children who flew sur-avkas and the first time he’d broken a limb falling from on high. He let his story wander, and when he thought about Sata Neek or Sonogari he shared their stories, too. “I miss my friends,” he said at one point. “I’m sure you miss yours.”

  He didn’t ask about Blink, though he wanted to. He still didn’t know if Blink’s outreach at Cerberon had been authorized by Shadow Wing; he didn’t dare endanger his opposite number by saying something indiscreet. If Blink was alive, he hoped the pilot would recognize the opportunity for contact without prompting. If Blink was dead…maybe one day, after the war, he’d have an opportunity to learn the truth.

  Nonetheless, when he pictured Cherroi he saw the same shadowy picture of an Imperial flight suit he saw when he pictured Blink.

  When he’d said all he could think to say to Duchas Cherroi, he looked to his datapad and chose another name on the list: Bansu Ro.

  He introduced himself. Then searched his heart and all his past and found a new story to tell.

  * * *

  —

  When two hours passed and Wyl realized he was late to a briefing with Flare Squadron, he promised his invisible audience he’d be back. Then he removed his headset and stepped out of the closetlike crush of the comm room. He drew up short when he saw nearly a dozen pilots and crew sitting on the polished floor in the corridor outside. Between Avremif’s legs was a portable transmitter.

  Judging by her grin, Vitale recognized Wyl’s confusion. She rose and swaggered over and punched him on the shoulder. It was kinder than anything she’d said in weeks. “This is what we’re doing now, huh?” she asked. “We’re amateur broadcast jockeys?”

  “Just looking for a way to fill time,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  Her grin fell away. “You got a list of names?”

  “I do.”

  “Anything special we should or shouldn’t talk about?”

  Understanding dawned over him, and he wanted to embrace Vitale and everyone else who’d come.

  “No,” he said. “Just be honest. No threats, nothing classified. Nothing about our plans.”

  “All right,” Vitale said, and stepped around him toward the comm room. “Those bastards don’t deserve us, but I’m bored and my dad did gigs like this for a living. You’re not hogging all the fun.”

  III

  Nath listened to the broadcast as he cooked, as he ate with Hail, and on his next patrol. Vitale was more of a performer than Wyl, cackling at her own jokes and speaking in hushed tones as she discussed her mother’s gradual surrender to age and infirmity. Ghordansk, who followed Vitale, read fragments of the opera he was writing, which Nath thought missed the point but kept the chain of speakers going. The broadcast went silent when the particle tide went out and skirmish time came around (again, no fatalities) but one of Wild Squadron’s girls was online soon after, fighting through her stutter to express her outrage over the fate of Fedovoi End.

  It was around that point the Shadow Wing pilots began to talk back.

  Not all of them and not often, but every now and then one would ask or answer a question. One man seemed to be flirting with Sergeant Ragnell. Then for a while Shadow Wing stopped talking and later, just as abruptly, started again.

  Nath could only imagine what Colonel Keize was telling the enemy commanders. But anything that kept them distracted and confused was good for the New Republic.

  Wyl was on the comm again as Nath wandered the Deliverance, debating whether he’d be able to sleep if he tried. It was now close to two days since they’d arrived at Chadawa and no one had gotten much rest. The situation looked stable, but when it went wrong it would go very, very wrong.

  “…I don’t expect an answer, but I’ll ask the question,” Wyl said. “Why are you doing this? Why not go home? I know it’s not that simple, but I’d really like to understand.”

  Nath considered turning off his earpiece. He halted when a gravelly voice replied over the rainfall static: “You really want to know?”

  “I do,” Wyl said, because of course he did. Nath shook his head. “We haven’t—do I know you? Have we talked before?”

  “We haven’t. But I’ll give you the truth: I can’t go home because it’s a conquered land. People like you, who I spent ten years fighting, occupy Quellor now. I’ve got family there—family blasted proud of their military connections, who kept an Imperial banner in their apartment window. I don’t know where they are now.”

  “Tell me their names,” Wyl said, “and I’ll see if I can find them—”

  Nath snapped the earpiece off and stepped into the vehicle hangar. The hangar was normally empty—the New Republic hadn’t had time or opportunity to load it with the Empire’s usual shipload of hovertanks and Juggernauts—and it made for a decent place to run laps or hang targets off gantries for shooting practice. Today, however, a humanoid figure stood dead center staring at the bay doors. Two jade head-tails hung behind her back.

  General Syndulla removed an earpiece of her own as she turned toward Nath with a smile. “Captain Tensent. Don’t mind me—just measuring the real estate. Hangar’s yours if you need it.”

  “Can’t say I do,” Nath replied. He nodded toward the comlink in her hand. “I’m surprised you’re allowing this.”

  Syndulla laughed. There was a sardonic edge Nath had heard from her before; the woman had a cynical side, but she didn’t often show it. “If he’d asked me beforehand, I probably would’ve said no. Maybe wrongly—he’s getting through to them, if only a little.”

  “The man bludgeons you with empathy until you start to like him. It’s a skill. You hear Ragnell and the Imp earlier?”

  “I did. Did you hear the singing?”

  Nath arched his brow. “Must’ve been when I was getting ready for patrol. What—”

  “Denish Wraive and one of the Shadow Wing pilots—can’t recall his name, but they went half a dozen verses of ‘The Khuntavaryan Fall.’ ” She paused and half closed her eyes, and sang in a voice lower and richer than her usual timbre:

  Three and three the wagons rolled

  As clouds did clash and the rain did pour;

  After a moment, Nath joined her:

  And soldiers strong and mothers bold

  Wept for the city they had adored.

  They laughed together, and Nath shook his head. “We’re still going to have to kill them,” he said, with a smile turned bitter. “You figure our squadrons remember that?”

  “They will if they have to. If Chadawa’s survival is at stake. In the meantime I’d rather them pity the enemy than hate them, which is where we were a day ago.”

  “Plenty still do. They’re not the ones singing.”

  “Maybe. What about you? What are you doing in the hangar instead of lining up at the comm?”

  Nath weighed answers and settled for honesty. “Feels a touch chaotic right now, like everything’s on the verge of falling apart. Can’t say I like it when the world’s out of my control.”

  “There’s lots we disagree on, but right there? You and I think alike.” Syndulla rolled her neck, taking in the hangar once more, before strolling in Nath’s direction. “Hard to imagine what it’ll all look like ten hours from now, let alone ten days.”

  “You’re the general. Aren’t you thinking in months?”

  “You know how it works: I’m the general, so I pretend
to think in months while mostly hauling us out of the latest fire.” She stopped and looked Nath up and down before adding, “You stick with Intelligence long enough, you’ll get ignored when you talk about years.”

  “Doubt I’ll be whispering in Cracken’s ear anytime soon,” Nath said. He shifted his weight, vaguely uncomfortable with the turn in the conversation for reasons he couldn’t put his finger on.

  “Maybe you should be,” Syndulla said. “Look, I don’t know what your plans are but when the war’s over New Republic Intelligence is going to need people. Caern Adan was right that the day’ll come when we need more spies than soldiers. You’re smart, charismatic, and a decorated war hero. Exactly the sort of public-facing officer Chief Cracken will be looking for.”

  Nath tried to laugh. The sound didn’t make it out of his throat. “Get an office on Coruscant? Brief senators and vie for funding over lunch?”

  “Why not? People trust you, Captain Tensent. And if we’re going to depend on Intelligence for our security, the organization needs public trust.”

  The image lodged in him like grit behind a tooth. Playing the part of galactic hero had its perks while the galaxy was in chaos; but living it years on end was a troubling proposition.

  “What about you?” he asked. “You vying for a job as supreme commander after the war’s over?”

  “Hadn’t crossed my mind,” Syndulla said. “I’m actually hoping to get away from the fleet. I’ve got—well, there’s personal business I have to take care of. Whenever that’s done, I’d like to live in peace for a while.”

  “Hard to picture that. For anyone, not just you.”

  “It’s why we need to work for it. Everything we’re doing now…it’s for the New Republic, not for us. But I’ve got a family. I’ve got a son who needs me, a homeworld I haven’t seen in too long. I’ve got people I care about—I want to live for them awhile, instead of for the galaxy.”

  Nath cocked his head, assessing the woman before him. He’d thought he’d figured out Syndulla, but he’d never pushed past the uniform. “I hear you. You actually ready to do all that, after so many years slinging blasters?”

  She didn’t hesitate. She smiled a joyful, dignified smile. “Oh, yes.”

  Nath nodded slowly. The woman projected authority even when talking about settling down.

  “Now if you’ll excuse me,” she said, “I’ve got a planet to save and some tough decisions to make. Chadawa deserves to dream about the future, too.”

  IV

  Chass na Chadic lived a brief lifetime in a galaxy where the Children of the Empty Sun had spread from star to star, finding recruits in every decaying industrial port and nonhuman ghetto, projecting holograms of Let’ij into the sky where the cult leader could watch over all. In this galaxy Chass wore a cybernetic headset that pumped her brain full of the cult’s lessons and commands at all hours, brought her together with fellow acolytes to recruit and proselytize, told her who to sit with at meals, and played soothing hymns at night. Chass was not part of Let’ij’s inner circle, nor did she care to be. She was not happy, nor did she need to be.

  It wasn’t a bad dream, nor the only dream to come to her; but waking thoughts and sensations often encroached on her rest. Her body was contorted in the seat of her B-wing, her neck and torso aching. Kairos murmured over the open comm in a short-syllabled language Chass didn’t recognize, and Chass lacked the strength to shout Shut up! Shut up! Let me sleep! She whispered the chants of cults she’d known. Exhaustion clung to her like sweat.

  Beneath it all, like the slow, steady heartbeat of a great beast in hibernation, the thought Yrica Quell is alive pounded inside her mind. It ruined even the best of the dreams.

  “Here.”

  Kairos’s voice came distinctly now, yanking Chass into the dark of her cockpit.

  “Here,” Kairos repeated.

  A pale-green sun burned far away, dimmer than the U-wing’s thrusters. Chass glanced at her readout: the Netalych system. Not one she recognized.

  “My turn?” Chass asked, and prepared to pick their next destination off the astrogation charts.

  “No,” Kairos said. “There is an outpost here.”

  Chass straightened abruptly, pain shooting through her side where she’d cramped during sleep. She fumbled with her controls and saw the signal emanating from one of the frozen planets. She swore and tried to ignore her own light-headedness. “Giving it a scan. They’re broadcasting nonaligned flight control codes—could be a trading port, gray-market resupply post…no obvious reason she’d come here, but hell, we don’t even know what she’s trying to do.”

  Kairos said nothing, but Chass saw the ship change course toward the outpost.

  “Guess we’re landing,” Chass muttered.

  She wondered briefly about Kairos’s state of mind. Mask or no mask, the woman seemed to be gradually reverting to an earlier incarnation of herself. If they found Quell below, Chass could hardly be surprised if Kairos shot her on sight.

  Not the likeliest outcome, but it was possible. Judge, Kairos had said. She was there to judge. Sometimes judgment came swiftly and violently.

  Chass tried to decide whether she should care and brought their frigid destination into view.

  CHAPTER 11

  REFACTORING OF PARAMETERS

  I

  “Remarkable work. Magnificently inefficient by any modern standard. Remarkable all the same,” the Surgeon’s head proclaimed, peeking out of the wire curtain. Quell was troubled by an unprovable certainty that it was a different head than she’d spoken to the previous day—the chrome was duller than it had been, and one of the eyes askew. “It took three hours just to trace the logic pathways.”

  The remains of the Emperor’s Messenger—all the remains she’d brought to Netalych, at least—were spread in front of the curtain as if for public display. Individual circuits were arranged in rows and columns; the torso’s skeletal framework could have been a prop in an anatomy lesson. The faceplate stared toward Quell, and she was careful not to look at it directly—even with the machine so thoroughly deactivated, the thought of seeing her reflection in its visor made her shudder.

  “You found what I wanted, though?” she asked.

  “Yes. The hardware-embedded memory was heavily encrypted but not unbreakable. You know by certain technical definitions it wouldn’t be considered a droid?”

  The Surgeon talked too much, jumping from one idea to the next too readily. It was disorienting, and Quell struggled to determine what was important and what was trivial.

  “What?”

  “Oh, yes—”

  Don’t let your guard down. That’s how you lost Kandende.

  “—it’s a computer, a machine,” the Surgeon went on, “but imagine if the core directive of a machine wasn’t to resolve tasks and logic but to express a particular emotion—as if it were a painting or another piece of fine art. Imagine a culture that never developed higher mathematics but could symbolically render feeling and motivation. Imagine this culture built computers using that science instead of ours—”

  “You can’t keep it,” Quell said. “You can’t activate it.”

  “Fine. Sweep it up your own damn self.”

  An arm emerged from the curtain and tossed her duffel toward her; it struck her chest hard enough to snatch her breath. She caught it in both arms anyway and picked her way to the remains.

  “What emotion?” she asked, knowing she shouldn’t.

  “Not my area of expertise,” the Surgeon said. “Loathing? Spite? Those are emotions, aren’t they? I don’t have the words.”

  Quell raised one foot and brought her boot down on the grid of circuits. She felt the satisfying snap of metal and plastoid, saw fragments skid across the floor, and twisted her heel before repeating the action again and again, until she was pa
nting and no circuit remained intact. The Surgeon said nothing, and Quell didn’t look in the direction of the curtain. Instead she knelt on the floor and used one arm to sweep the fragments together, gathering them into piles and then scooping handfuls into the duffel.

  “How did it find its targets?” Quell asked as she tossed the metal spine into the bag. “How did it know who to talk to when it relayed the order for Operation Cinder?”

  She almost echoed Keize’s words: Whatever qualities it looked for…how did it identify them at all? How did it know Colonel Nuress and the lot of us were competent—or sadistic—enough to see this through?

  She felt a sharp tap at the base of her skull and heard something clatter to the floor. She saw a datachip beside her and one of the Surgeon’s arms withdrawing. “Poor aim. Apologies. It’s all there, everything you asked for. The program instructions, the algorithms, the databases.” The head emitted a garbled sound Quell took for laughter. “Many secrets, if you can keep them.”

  “Can you?” she asked, lifting the datachip between thumb and forefinger. It was innocuous-looking, dull gray and unlabeled; it might’ve been a music collection. She dropped it in her hip pocket. “Keep them secret?”

  “If I said no you’d try to shoot me, wouldn’t you?”

  “You live in a bunker. I doubt shooting at you would solve my problem. Answer the question.”

  “Fortunately for you, the secrets on that chip don’t concern me or my kind. Messy organic business, the legacy of a dying galactic government. I promise I’ll tell no one—look, I’m deleting my memory now. Ah!” The Surgeon tapped its skull and shook itself with a performative shiver. “There, peace of mind.”

  Quell nodded, considered whether to try to destroy the thing, and decided the attempt would be suicidal. She’d take it at its word. She hoisted the duffel and returned to the slab of the blast door, which slid open with its usual sloth.