Victory's Price (Star Wars)

by Alexander Freed

  She sought a counterargument as they tore through a titanic hologram of Mas Amedda—the Emperor’s old vizier, face of the powerless Coruscanti government. Beads of light like rain spattered her starfighter as Keize went on: “We both know there’s truth to my arguments—you’ve barely attempted to refute them. You’re pitting yourself against me for reasons unrelated to my motivations.”

  She blinked away azure, spotted Keize heading beneath another data sphere. He’d cut two sections of the tripod linking it to a tower below; if he cut the third, its repulsorlifts would be the only thing keeping it aloft.

  “I’m doing this because people are going to die—” she began.

  “People are going to die no matter what we do!”

  “They’re going to die here, on Coruscant, today, when we drop buildings on them. That’s not meaningless, Colonel. I don’t believe you think it’s meaningless.”

  He was steadying his ship, tempting her to fire—baiting her again. If she fired and she missed, she’d cut the support strut herself.

  She loaded a concussion missile, hoped the prototype X-wing’s launcher was functional, and sent it streaking toward the data sphere. Keize spun away as the warhead detonated against the sphere’s armored casing; but the blast wave caught him, burning air and sonic impact sending the TIE tumbling. The support strut blew apart, sacrificed to save others. The sphere itself was unscathed. Quell suspected Keize had taken damage—at the least, he’d been thrown off balance.

  He always had been a better pilot in space than in atmosphere.

  “I don’t think civilian casualties are meaningless,” he said, breathless. “I do believe they are the cost of war. How many civilians died when the New Republic invaded Troithe? We accept the tragedy when it serves our cause.

  “Innocents will always die. That’s why all a soldier can do is protect her own kind—stay loyal to her comrades, safeguard the lives she can touch and see, and end the battle as swiftly as possible. We’re not gods or kings—our power is over the strife before us, and all else is payment for others’ choices.”

  The TIE flew crookedly—a result of the missile blast, Quell thought—but Keize seemed to have lost none of his deftness. He was ascending, peaking above the data spheres as he began what had to be his final pass. Before she dropped back down after him, Quell caught a glimpse of gray skies still flashing with crimson and emerald.

  “I ask you—” Keize let gravity carry the TIE downward as he angled himself to shoot at support struts above—the same trick she’d used against him earlier. His trick, though she hadn’t remembered it as such. “—do you do this because you believe in your cause? Or because of the sickness inside you?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she lied.

  She fired rapidly, uselessly. Keize dived between buildings and soared like a needle threading the district, each time ruining one last structure keeping the data spheres aloft. Quell could barely keep pace, barely stand the forces of acceleration on her body as she gave chase.

  “You do know,” Keize said. “What happened at Nacronis nearly destroyed you. The horrors there consume you. Guilt blinds you to necessity—and I don’t judge that, I don’t hold you to blame, but I ask you to step aside.”

  “I’m not doing this out of guilt,” she said. She thought she said it, though she didn’t hear the sound.

  “I tell you this, Yrica Quell: You are not responsible for what happened there. Not for Operation Cinder as a whole, nor for the plan to depopulate a world. You are not responsible for the death of Nacronis.”

  She wanted to answer and knew she couldn’t. She yearned for a message from Jakku—something to send her mind elsewhere. Nothing came.

  “I am responsible,” Keize said. “I sent the squadrons into battle. I designed the attack plan. If you had refused, nothing would have changed—the deaths would still have occurred. The responsibility is mine.”

  The words were a balm. More than that, they seemed to hollow her and make her buoyant. She wanted to believe, as if believing would change the past and transform her, instantly, into another person; a person far from Coruscant, unburdened by the prospect of killing her mentor or the stains on her soul.

  She wanted to believe, but she’d made a pledge to herself at Cerberon. She knew what she’d done and, accepting that, she had chosen to move forward.

  Keize cut a spire rising out of blackness, and the metal column creaked and toppled. Quell narrowly avoided being crushed, and she heard through her engine’s roar the horrific sound as the spire struck a neighboring building and plummeted. She didn’t look—she kept up her pursuit as Keize headed for the central repulsor platform. The last of his targets.

  She increased her speed and shot wildly, forcing him off course and driving him skyward again. She expected he would lead her into the open and gain the advantage.

  “I don’t need your absolution or your forgiveness,” she said. The TIE slipped through the gap between data spheres and Quell followed, knowing she was accelerating too hard but determined to smash into Keize if she couldn’t bring him down. “You can’t give me either.”

  She finished, almost gasping: “I’m through with sacrificing people. You want to stop me, you kill me.”

  “As you wish,” Keize said, and she expected those to be the last words she ever heard. She chased him out above the district until the clouds seemed close enough to touch, and she waited for the maneuver, the twist that would eliminate her and leave him free to do what he intended.

  Keize’s fighter glided to one side, and she swept past him into his targeting sights.

  Then a guttural voice said, “I forgive you,” and she was saved.

  VI

  She had not been named Kairos when she’d been young. She had taken that name after being given life by Caern Adan, and it was no longer right but she had earned no other. She wished to remedy that one day.

  She had led her foes away from the city and back, allowed them to batter her vessel until her viewport was blackened and she had devoted all her craft’s energies to speed and defense. She had allowed the U-wing to pilot itself while she stepped to a loading door, steadying herself on the portal’s frame as she fired her bowcaster into the sky.

  Had she still truly been Kairos, she might have taken joy in the spears of light that skewered the eyes of the Empire’s machines. She might have celebrated the deaths of the jailers of Coruscant, who carried out the fallen Emperor’s wishes so long after his demise. She did not pity her prey, but her joy was only in the execution of a hunter’s skill; the shot instead of the slaying. It was a muffled joy, too, for she knew she had another purpose.

  She had come to judge Yrica Quell, the defector and killer of worlds; legacy of Adan and IT-O, who had shaped Quell and poured their lives and blood and spirits into her so that she might live on, and in doing so bound her to Kairos, whose spirit had long been mingled with that of Adan and IT-O, and who was compelled to ensure that their heir was worthy.

  Kairos had her answer now.

  She had returned to the cockpit in time to hear the man of Shadow Wing offer temptations. Kairos had sought shelter in the darkest clouds, eluded the baleful emerald flames of her foes, and listened. She had heard the words as more enemies had come, far too many to defeat. She had heard the pain and defiance in the voice of her sister, and she had been pleased.

  Yrica Quell was worthy.

  Had Kairos judged otherwise, she would have taken no joy at all in shedding the woman’s blood.

  (How strange it was to seek to shed so little blood. How unlike the Kairos she had been!)

  She drew her foes through the clouds above her destination. She drew their ire, twisted in her seat and shot wild shots over her shoulder through both doorways as wind roared and attempted to hurl her from the cockpit into the sky. She could smell the scent
of shields energizing air and the scorched trails of cannon blasts. She could smell the iron of the great city below.

  She dived. Her enemies followed. She slipped from the clouds and a rain of energy bolts fell around her—for she had made her hunters overeager, too ready to shoot without thought. Below her, between sky and city, was the starfighter of Yrica Quell and the craft of her foe.

  Kairos aimed her vessel at Soran Keize and drew the murderous rain onto both the man from Shadow Wing and her sister. She activated retro-rockets and repulsors so that her ship would slow and she said farewell to it—the vessel had served her well, the vessel her sister had called a chrysalis—knowing it would immolate and that its last burning breaths would reach Yrica Quell and Soran Keize.

  This was the fire of her judgment, and she hoped that it would be the salvation of one and the death of the other.

  As her U-wing broke apart and died like stars die, the woman who had been Kairos removed her harness and cast herself into the sky.

  CHAPTER 24

  THE CELEBRATION OF INNOCENCE

  I

  The world spun about Wyl Lark, blending colors like paint washed down a drain. Through the viewport of his escape pod he could see a vast darkness streaked by starships, particle bolts, and hues representing every flammable chemical used by starfaring peoples. The dusty sphere of Jakku was the only solid thing, drifting closer with every rotation of the pod.

  There were sounds, too—dozens of voices crying for help and barking orders. He’d activated a comm unit but he didn’t understand it and all he listened for was a familiar voice, any familiar voice, Nath or Chass or General Syndulla or anyone from Wild or Flare or Hail. He might’ve been on the wrong channel.

  He was delirious, of course. He was aware enough to perceive the irony of his confidence in that fact.

  He didn’t remember how he’d reached the pod. He vaguely recalled fire and terrible pain (a pain that, whenever he let himself notice, returned to him). He recalled the face of Ragnell, the tattooed ground crew chief, twisted and angry as she shouted orders to unseen figures; recalled her rewiring a panel with shaking hands as the air turned gray. She’d dragged him to safety somehow, but she wasn’t with him in the pod. No one was with him in the pod.

  He was exhausted and if he looked down at his own body he saw a tremendous amount of blood and shards of metal where there should have been flesh. For this reason he rarely looked.

  He focused on the viewport.

  There was a series of flashes like fireworks; a tremendous flash at the center of a swirl of colors—a detonation bright enough that Wyl wondered briefly if he’d looked into Jakku’s sun. But there was sunlight seeping from behind the planet, and after remembering this he was sure some warship had been lost—a Starhawk, maybe, or the Super Star Destroyer.

  He thought of Ragnell again, and then of the face of a young Cathar whom he recalled fighting with Ragnell—screaming at the crew chief with fear in her eyes, saying something about priorities and pods remaining and General Syndulla’s orders. He remembered Ragnell smiling an idyllic smile unlike anything he’d seen from the prickly woman. Then the flames again, and the odor of singed fur, and Ragnell’s voice echoing through the corridor as they (they?) ran.

  The flash from the warship’s explosion hadn’t yet faded, turning all the other colors pale. He heard screams that might have been celebratory.

  The sounds of celebration were replaced by silence, then a soft, distant ringing.

  Maybe he’d just lost his hearing.

  He was alone in the escape pod. Other escape pods had been launched, though, and he was grateful to Ragnell and the Cathar. For whatever they’d done and however much they’d sacrificed.

  The movements of the fleets seemed to slow down. As his eyelids became too heavy to keep open, he had a thought he couldn’t explain or justify. One he was nonetheless compelled by:

  The New Republic had won its war.

  II

  It was her shields that saved her.

  Quell had once mocked deflectors as an extravagance—a safety mechanism for rebel fighter pilots too undisciplined to evade attacks. But when the TIEs descended on Verity in pursuit of Kairos’s U-wing, the rain of particle bolts and the U-wing’s detonation had unleashed an unexpected conflagration the X-wing’s defenses had in part absorbed.

  Keize’s TIE fighter had been less fortunate. Whereas Quell had managed (with assistance from 4E) to steady her damaged fighter and control her descent, Keize had lost a wing when one of the other TIEs had grazed him in the chaos. Quell had struggled to track him among the rest of the Imperial craft, but then she’d recognized the scar she’d given him earlier; he was falling, maneuvering with short thruster bursts as he disappeared between the data spheres.

  Two TIEs had followed her when she’d attempted to give chase—the remainder had been destroyed or scattered by the U-wing’s blast—and she’d dispatched them with the three cannons left to her. Now 4E was beeping urgently and she was holding the X-wing aloft by repulsors alone, losing altitude meter by meter.

  “He could’ve made it,” she snapped. “He doesn’t die that easily—he could’ve flown to the repulsor platform, he could still be trying to finish the mission. You understand?”

  I forgive you, Kairos had said. Quell feared the woman was dead, though she strained against the thought.

  The droid splashed data onto her console. Wrapped in grief and doubt, it was a moment before she recognized the sensor map of the area and saw the turbolift 4E had highlighted. She’d already dipped below the level of the repulsor platform, but the lift led from a maintenance scaffold up to the repulsor controls.

  “How do we get there?”

  The droid plotted a course. The X-wing continued sinking and one of its thrusters blew out loudly enough to leave Quell’s head pounding. The others spewed black smoke but they were enough to impel the craft around a tower and shove it toward their destination: an expanse of metal planking and plates barely large enough for a speeder bike, let alone a starfighter. She was nearly beneath it by the time she closed the distance, and managed to land only by tearing through the safety railings. They screamed and sparked and wrapped around her cockpit as she came to a stop, and afterward she realized how badly she was shaking.

  “Stay here as long as you can,” she told the droid as she raised the canopy. “If you have to leave, leave.”

  She was dropping to the ground when she thought of D6-L, the first New Republic droid she’d worked with. She’d grown fond of it too late; she didn’t expect she’d have the chance to remedy that error with 4E, but she added a soft, “Thank you.” She wasn’t sure whether 4E heard.

  The turbolift was inoperable, broken during the battle or shut down for security or power conservation. There was an emergency ladder, though, and the climb was long enough that Quell had to take care not to exhaust herself before she reached the top. The ascent gave her time to wonder whether Keize truly could’ve landed his damaged TIE or whether a toxic cocktail of panic and adrenaline was pushing her forward in place of reason. She also had time to realize she carried no weapon—not a blaster, not even a utility knife—and that she didn’t know how practiced Keize was at ground combat.

  Better than she was, almost certainly.

  She climbed until her shoulders ached and she feared she would fall. When she reached the top she nearly dropped down the shaft trying to operate the access lever; after a few tugs it opened a hatch to the main platform. She saw instantly that her fears had not been misguided: A one-winged TIE had gouged a ten-meter-long trench in the platform surface, coming to rest less than a dozen meters from the turbolift. The TIE’s cockpit viewport was cracked and missing several panels, and she saw no sign of the pilot inside or out. Nor did she spot evidence of security forces; the platform appeared to be abandoned.

  In
the platform’s center was a solid dome housing the repulsorlift generators. These, in turn, beamed invisible energy into the district holding the data spheres aloft. Quell made for one of the crawlways set in the dome’s base and paused when she encountered a trail of grime and blood. She followed it, increasing her pace.

  The crawlway itself was almost comforting: The claustrophobic panels crammed with readouts reminded her of the Yadeez or Gavana Orbital. Emergency lights showed the blood trail continuing. As the crawlway expanded and allowed Quell to stand, she wondered if she should attempt stealth, but the flight and the climb had left her little strength. She had no intention of making more noise than necessary, but she wouldn’t feign the subtlety of an assassin.

  She didn’t have to. She heard Keize’s ragged breathing from a branch in the corridor and spied him propped against a wall in his flight suit, gloves and helmet removed. He was unspooling wire from a panel to a metal case with trembling hands, and when he saw Quell—long seconds after she saw him—he pulled a blaster pistol and aimed it her way. The barrel bobbed so rapidly she wondered if he could hit her even at such short range.

  His face was soaked in sweat and his hair disheveled. She expected she looked little better. The only blood she saw ran beneath his chin and down his neck, as if he’d dribbled from a glass. But as she studied him, she realized the black flight suit was wet and torn along his leg and his side—shrapnel wounds, she assumed. If he’d crashed hard enough to impale himself he’d likely also crashed hard enough to break bones and rupture organs.

  “I don’t think you’re going to win,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’d prefer better odds,” he admitted. He flexed his fingers around the grip of the blaster as if to still the tremors. It didn’t work, and he looked exhausted by the effort. “I have enough explosives to blow the repulsorlifts, though. Proton warheads, courtesy of the 204th.”