Victory's Price (Star Wars)

by Alexander Freed

  Her voice was matter-of-fact but her eyes looked tired. Quell remembered she hadn’t slept the past night.

  “We’re close,” Quell said. “I think it’s working, but I need to reassemble and test it before we run a final systems check.”

  “You want me to take over? I can handle that.”

  “Thanks.” Quell shook her head and smiled faintly. “I had to improvise some replacement parts—should probably handle it myself.”

  Chadic shrugged. “Your call,” she said, and looked back to the bulkhead.

  Quell watched Chadic, observing the shift of the woman’s muscles beneath her shirt and the spacing of her feet on the deck. Even at rest, even from behind, she looked powerful.

  Careful with those thoughts. She doesn’t hate you. She hasn’t forgiven you. Let that be enough.

  “What are you looking at?” Quell asked.

  Chadic stepped aside. Kairos did not. Quell squeezed between them, peering into the compartment, and found a face staring out at her: a clamped and riveted thing, a metal mask with no features except a dark visor.

  Once it had been Kairos’s face.

  “You kept it here?” Quell asked, glancing to Kairos.

  “Where else?” Kairos replied.

  “Can’t argue with that,” Chadic said. “Anyway, we were waiting for you.”

  Quell furrowed her brow. “To do what?”

  Chadic ignored Quell and looked past her to Kairos. “You want to keep it, you want to shove it into hyperspace, that’s fine with me. But I figured—”

  “Yes,” Kairos said, and delicately lifted the mask with gloved hands. She held it away from her body, touching it with her fingertips as if it radiated heat.

  Chadic led the way outside. Quell thought she understood and followed after Kairos.

  The hike took them into the night, and they heard the chittering and the flutes and a popping sound like sparks fleeing a burning log. Kairos guided them by the same path they’d taken before and found the entrance to the tunnel with ease, and they paused there to collect all they needed. Under Kairos’s supervision, Chadic cut down a stiff, tall plant stalk while Quell tore down an armful of vines.

  They descended the tunnel stairs single file, glow rods ready, and although Quell listened for the metallic sounds of the serpent-creatures, she found familiarity eased her fear. She examined the cave walls with greater curiosity than before and thought of Colonel Keize and his interest in forgotten cultures—an interest he’d never admitted to her aloud, but which she’d inferred from one casual reference or another to archaeological digs and lost worlds over the years. He would’ve found the tunnels fascinating; he would’ve asked Kairos questions that had never occurred to Quell. (In a different life, at least, she was sure he would have.)

  They walked among the painted whorls and arrived in the place of the effigies. Kairos stopped beyond the last of the figures, and Chadic began digging with the stalk and her hands. Over the course of an hour, she planted her makeshift stake. Kairos then removed her cloak and unwound strips of cloth from her body until she stood nude; and they tied her garments together and stuffed them with dirt and bound them to the stake.

  They set the mask in place together, at Kairos’s urging, resting it atop the bundle. When Quell stepped away she was surprised to look at the effigy and feel nothing—not fear or awe, but just the certainty that she looked at a discarded heap of metal and cloth.

  Maybe, she thought, that was the intent.

  “I am no longer changing,” Kairos said. “I do not know what I am.”

  Neither Quell nor Chadic spoke. Quell doubted Kairos was talking to either of them.

  The nude woman said something else in a language Quell didn’t understand, then turned down the tunnel the way they had come. “I leave this behind,” she said, and they went.

  * * *

  —

  Quell hadn’t lied about the navicomputer. It had been broken and she’d applied most of the fixes required. But she’d deceived her friends by intentionally leaving work undone; by waiting for Chadic to fall asleep stretched across the U-wing’s crew seats while Kairos took watch outside; by claiming to be finalizing repairs when in fact she was accessing the database and the comm system for reasons of her own.

  She hadn’t needed an Imperial computer core but it helped. She cross-referenced the data she’d memorized from the Messenger with what was now held in the U-wing and the satellite system above the planet. She referenced coordinates and felt dread build in her chest (beyond the dread of being caught—of losing Chadic again, of being murdered by Kairos).

  She hadn’t entirely known what to expect, only guessing at a range of awful possibilities. Still, IT-O had once told her that the Emperor was a petty and spiteful man. The most likely answer was always the answer that would cause the most pain.

  She tilted her head against the pilot’s chair, peering through the doorway at Chadic. The Theelin’s feet and right hand dangled off the row of seats, and her chest rose and fell as she snored. She seemed in no danger of waking.

  She was beautiful. She was also vindictive and strident and confused. So was Kairos. So were Fra Raida and Rikton and even Kandende, and though she couldn’t forgive Shadow Wing any more than she could forgive herself, she could acknowledge that her old comrades weren’t monsters, had never been monsters.

  Or maybe they all were.

  Quell was no better than any of the pilots of Shadow Wing. She’d simply been lucky enough to find her way out. And after the past few days, Quell had seen proof enough that Chadic and Kairos weren’t any saner than her.

  Soran Keize was one of the few people she’d ever known who lived by the code he proclaimed; who stared into the universe and knew with certainty the path he needed to take, and whose missteps weren’t failures of nerve or personal ethics but purely tactical. She admired him, loved him for that more than he would ever realize.

  She wasn’t sure if he was right. She needed his help to find out.

  Quell turned back to the console, disabled all recording and logging functions, and activated the satellite’s long-range communications array.

  V

  Grand Moff Randd was half a man today, the left side of his body distorted and inchoate while the right glowed fixedly above the holoprojector. There was symbolism there, Soran Keize thought, though he doubted the moff would share his perspective as he sat in his cabin.

  “—will be disappointed about Chadawa, but I can’t say I care,” Randd said. “The traitors have been eliminated—whether by your hand or the New Republic’s, it doesn’t matter in the end.”

  “I appreciate that, sir,” Soran answered.

  “More to the point, we need you here. Consider the 204th recalled to Jakku.”

  Soran thought Randd would expect surprise at the order and did his best to oblige, furrowing his brow. “Is Operation Cinder complete? Are there no more enemies who—”

  “Consider Cinder on hold. The rebels will confirm our fleet’s location within days if they haven’t already, and a decisive moment is at hand. We need every available ship to crush the enemy armada when it comes.”

  This turn of events had been inevitable—Soran had been awaiting it since he’d first learned of the Jakku rendezvous, known with absolute confidence that the New Republic would locate it before the Empire could establish a defensible, multisystem core; known, too, that the New Republic would take an aggressive stance, direct its battleships and frigates and fighters to obliterate the Imperial remnant; and known that the odds of Imperial victory were slim.

  Though he was getting ahead of himself.

  “I’ll send the order to the helm presently. You believe a head-on confrontation is our best choice?”

  “I do,” Randd said. “Jakku has sharpened us. Charging forward, the enem
y will drive its heart onto our blade.”

  The grand moff did not owe a colonel—even a favored one—justification for his strategic choices. Nonetheless, Soran would have preferred a less poetic and more frank assessment. “May I ask if we know the strength of the enemy force? Are we expecting a siege, or—”

  “I expect,” Randd answered, with a trace of impatience, “the full might of the New Republic to be leveled at us. Like at Endor, the victor will be clear in a matter of hours and shall, unopposed, begin an offensive to claim the galaxy.” He looked to one side, reviewing a screen Soran could not see. “The 204th will take delta position by the Super Star Destroyer Ravager and coordinate with our secondary battle group on close-atmosphere defense…”

  Tactical data streamed by on Soran’s own screen. He read enough to confirm his suspicions. “Respectfully, Grand Moff, your information about the 204th may be outdated.” He was out of line but he kept his tone firm and confident. “The Yadeez is not the Pursuer, and lacks both the crew and capabilities of a Star Destroyer. Our escorts, fighters, and pilots have developed certain…idiosyncrasies that must be acknowledged if we are to take part in a coordinated defense.”

  Randd grunted and looked to his screen again. “ ‘Idiosyncrasies,’ eh? Very well. I’ll move another Destroyer by the Ravager, but I expect you at Jakku before the battle. I’m sure we can find something for your unit.”

  “Understood,” Soran said, and the hologram flashed away.

  He allowed himself the luxury of fantasizing. He considered ordering his unit to the far side of the galaxy from Jakku and concocting a mission along the way—something about securing territory, perhaps, or destroying a New Republic laboratory developing Death Star technology. But although he could spare his people the battle they would never forgive themselves once they realized the truth. They would live as cowards and deserters, or as martyrs, and either way it would destroy them.

  No, he thought. If Jakku was to host the war’s last battle, his people would need to be there. Perhaps—the odds were slim, albeit not insurmountable—they might even turn the tide. A partial victory might extend the fighting for years, or allow countless thousands of ships and soldiers to escape capture.

  Total defeat was more likely. No matter the outcome, he had to act.

  He focused on his console and retrieved once again the data Quell’s team had brought from Netalych. They’d declared Quell a traitor and he’d agreed with the appellation, but she had beamed the secrets of the Messenger to her ship, and Brebtin and Mirro had brought those to him. Kandende, Rikton, and Raida were dead or lost, and Soran would mourn them all in due time—yet the mission had been a success.

  He rechecked coordinates and viewed tactical data obtained from the fleet. Nothing revealed itself that he hadn’t already seen; no options but the one he had already chosen.

  He was toying with plans, envisioning battles and outcomes, when a notification appeared on his console. The Yadeez had received a coded signal designated for Soran; the transmission was weak, bounced across half the galaxy through multiple relays. Too degraded for holograms or even audio but arriving in real time.

  Only someone with an intimate knowledge of the Yadeez could have worked such a miracle. Soran acknowledged receipt and waited for a message to display.

  ~ This is Yrica Quell.

  Not “Lieutenant Quell,” he thought, with neither surprise nor disappointment. He keyed a response:

  ~ I am here. The data has been received.

  There was no reply after a short while, but the channel remained open. He wrote:

  ~ Assuming you are in New Republic custody or service?

  The reply came almost immediately.

  ~ Yes.

  He almost laughed at the simplicity of the answer. He heard her voice in his mind, solid and unflappable yet without confidence or certainty.

  He had questions and the transmission was likely to fail sooner rather than later. He condensed as much as he could.

  ~ Assuming you served under General Syndulla?

  ~ Yes.

  ~ Returning to New Republic service now?

  ~ Uncertain.

  I am sorry, he thought. Perhaps we both should’ve stayed where we were.

  He had sent her to the New Republic when he’d walked away from Shadow Wing. He’d done so believing she would find peace, that she deserved peace, and that defection would provide her something he’d struggled to give the rest of his unit.

  If she’d ended up working against her former colleagues, he had only himself to blame. And whatever had happened to her—whatever had driven her out and back to Shadow Wing—had not only been artifice.

  Maybe she’d betrayed the Empire. But she’d given him the Messenger.

  She wrote:

  ~ What are your intentions?

  Vague, but he understood her meaning. He had to assume they were being monitored.

  ~ Reason to believe that war is ending soon. Action must be taken immediately.

  ~ What action?

  ~ I will serve my people how I am able.

  There was another long delay before her reply came.

  ~ What action?

  ~ The New Republic cannot have access to the Resource. Too many lives are at stake.

  ~ What action?

  ~ Only one action possible.

  He knew exactly what she was thinking. The next delay did not surprise him.

  ~ Possible to avoid collateral damage?

  He’d asked himself the same questions. He had no desire to pay the price his actions would demand.

  ~ No local assistance available. Official hierarchy will not be in favor. The Resource is valuable means of control.

  ~ People will die.

  ~ Yes. What about those who live?

  He remembered speaking to her once aboard the Pursuer, after the gruesome bombing of Mennar-Daye. He’d found her reading a datapad in the mess hall and sat with her, asking about her studies until she’d begun to open up. He’d barely known her then, and she’d done her best to echo the official anti-Rebellion line even as she’d indicated her doubts.

  “There will always be those who die in war who don’t deserve it,” he’d said at last. “We can acknowledge that tragedy—we must, if we want to remain human. But our first obligation is always to our comrades.”

  She hadn’t asked why. No one ever did, though most wondered.

  He’d replied to the unspoken question with an answer he’d begun developing in his youth before his rational mind had found the words: one he’d grappled with in the fires of Outer Mebarius as a furious adolescent, and seized at last in his first years in the starfighter corps after the Second Battle of Epiphany and the destruction of the Destrier. He’d lived the answer since and taught it to dozens of cadets; it guided him still.

  “If we can’t help, if we refuse to help those closest to us in body and spirit, how can we begin to help others? What’s within your power is the fate of your fellow troops. For most, that’s responsibility enough,” he’d told Quell.

  They’d spoken more, of war and of monsters. She’d been so very young then.

  She still hadn’t answered his last message. He wrote:

  ~ What are your intentions?

  The words stared at him from his screen before, some minutes later, the transmission was severed.

  If she’d stood with him on the Yadeez he would have spoken to her, reasoned with her, heard her out and guided her as best he could. Yrica Quell did not share his soul but she was a soldier and he recognized her suffering, wished dearly to ease it no matter if she’d turned against the Empire.

  But he couldn’t help her now. She was gone, and Shadow Wing remained in his care. Shadow Wing, and all the soldiers of the Empire (because their lives
were all at stake, and no one else seemed to see what he saw) remained his responsibility.

  He put her out of his mind and began to plan for the end.

  VI

  More than twenty ships orbited Chadawa, inside the planet’s rings and sheltered from the particle tides. Along with the Deliverance were troop transports and medical frigates, gunships and vehicle carriers: everything required to stage an invasion or, if necessary, evacuate a world.

  So far, neither invasion nor evacuation had begun. Violence had broken out on several continents, but the chaos was contained and the actors unclear. Hera hoped to receive word that the Imperial government had surrendered or collapsed and that the radiation spilled in Operation Cinder was limited to unoccupied regions; if that message didn’t come, there would be difficult days ahead. Not for her, necessarily—she’d be turning local operations over to Fleet Commander Hellip as soon as he was up to speed—but the thought of abandoning a terrified world to another officer didn’t sit well.

  It was, however, her job. At least she hadn’t needed to fire a shot since Shadow Wing’s escape and the destruction of Colonel Madrighast’s Star Destroyer.

  She was on the bridge, ordering the deployment of a repair ship to one of the rings, when Ensign Dhina announced the arrival of two new ships: a U-wing and B-wing, emerging on the same vector. Hera spent half a second trying to remember whether she’d summoned those particular reinforcements, then straightened with a start. “Make space in the hangar and clear them to land,” she snapped. “And alert Captain Tensent.”

  Chass and Kairos were alive.

  She was on a turbolift moments later, then striding through the Star Destroyer to meet them. Wyl Lark was still in the medbay, his condition stabilized and improving rapidly; she decided it was better not to disturb him until she’d seen Alphabet’s lost members for herself. Nath, on the other hand, had more than earned the right to be there—his heroics against the Raiders had kept Chadawa safe.