It was all true, yet it was also the pitch he’d planned to give Bansu Ro. Nath knew Wyl; Wyl also knew Nath, and the kid would sniff out an incomplete story.
“The New Republic,” Nath said, slower and sober, “needed me to be something I’m not. Simple as that, and I’m not willing to be in that position.”
“You were exactly what the New Republic needed,” Wyl said. “You were what we needed, every day. You did tremendous things. You helped people. The other pilots thought the world of you.”
“Sure they did,” Nath said, “and I enjoyed it while it lasted. But the longer I stuck around—the longer I stayed with Alphabet—the closer I got to being killed. The closer we all got to being killed, because we were playing at being heroes as much as fighting a war. Wyl—”
He paused, considered what to say and how to say it and what he might regret later.
“Wyl, none of us should’ve survived those last days. The fact all five of us from poor Adan’s working group are still alive? That makes us the luckiest sons of sows to ever jump in a cockpit. I’ve gambled enough to know you don’t keep doubling down after a streak like that, and even if the next year, or two, or five are a little less risky—” He stopped again, sighed, and reoriented his thoughts. “I can live with risk. Risk’s not the problem. But when I say I’m not willing to be what the New Republic needs? I mean General Syndulla would’ve died without resentment if she’d gone down at Jakku. I can’t say the same.”
“I understand,” Wyl said. Nath eyed him dubiously, but Wyl shrugged and said, “I do. Looking at it that way, I’m not what the New Republic needs, either—for different reasons, but neither of us are the right people to be…” He fumbled for words, then laughed sadly. “I don’t know. Whatever comes next.”
“Glad you see it that way.”
They stood in awkward silence. T5 buzzed softly and Nath rapped his knuckles on the droid’s top. Wyl stroked a fingertip along the seam between his synthskin and organic flesh, as if brushing away something that had lodged there. “Can I ask you something?” he said, and Nath nodded.
“Sure.”
“Why did you stay with us as long as you did?”
He frowned in surprise. “You mean with the squadron?”
“With Alphabet Squadron, after Pandem Nai. Yes.”
“Man’s got to earn a living somehow, and—hell, you might as well know, if no one told you. Even before I started working for Nasha Gravas, I was on Adan’s private payroll, just in case he needed—”
“No, that wasn’t—” Wyl shook his head again. “I didn’t know that, but I’m really not shocked. That wasn’t it in the end, though—you’d earned your money and you were scared. What you’re saying now about dying, you’d been thinking it for a while and you kept going out there. At Chadawa, at Jakku, I saw you keep fighting. So why did you stay?”
The words roused irritation inside Nath. He tried to tamp it down. “Why do you think?” he asked. T5 buzzed again; Nath glared at the droid, then nodded. “Fine. You needed me. Not only you, but the whole squadron—I probably saved all your butts at one point or another. When all of you were gone, I bailed.”
“And now you’re going back to piracy?”
“Something like that.”
Wyl might or might not have known the specifics, but Nath certainly wasn’t in the mood to share.
“You’re not a good man,” Wyl said.
It should’ve angered him. It deserved a rough response, at least. But Wyl said it with such gentle conviction that Nath laughed uproariously before saying, “Most of us aren’t. Just a few who know it, though.”
Wyl smirked and paced a few steps to his left. Then he turned back around, all humor gone. “The thing is—you can be. When you decide to stand with someone, you’re one of the most loyal people I’ve met. You’re a natural leader—you did save all of us, more than once, and you made sure we were fit for duty.
“If you could surround yourself with the right crew, you could do so much for the galaxy. You don’t have to sacrifice yourself or risk death all the time—you just need people you can trust to pick the right battles.”
Nath released a long breath. He watched Wyl’s soft-shoed toe dig at the paving stones. For the second time that day, he felt he was getting old.
“Come with me,” Nath said.
Now it was Wyl’s turn to look surprised. “What?”
“Come with me. Be part of my new crew. You’ll love it when you meet the rest of the team—”
“I can’t.” Wyl smiled sadly. “I’m never shooting a gun again, Nath. I can’t.”
Nath waved the offer away. “I know,” he said, and he felt no disapproval—only a keen disappointment, as if some sentimental object was drifting from him in zero-gravity, close yet unreachable.
Neither man spoke awhile. In time, Wyl said, “Thank you, though,” and brushed nonexistent dust from his hands and stepped backward. “I’m really glad you’re all right.”
“You, too, brother,” Nath said. “You see any of the others, you wish them well for me.”
They said a few more polite words before Wyl left through an archway leading out of the cloister. Nath watched him go and when Wyl was finally out of sight he clapped his hands, the sound resonating through the too-quiet space.
Could’ve gone worse, he thought. Could’ve gone better, but it could’ve gone worse.
T5 made a low droning sound. Nath kicked the astromech with the side of his boot. “What’re you making noises at me for? Go after the kid!”
The droid chimed and beeped, and Nath shook his head. “I can figure out how to fly the ship. You go after him. Take care of him—he needs you, buddy.”
The droid was silent. Then its rockets ignited and it made it halfway out of the cloister in a single hop. It was rolling onward even as its dome spun and its photoreceptor focused on Nath, watching him as it moved away.
Nath laughed and gave a wave. He waited till T5, too, was gone before walking over to his Y-wing and standing in the shadow of its landing struts, staring at its scratched and carbon-scored underbelly.
Guess I’ve got to add a droid to my recruiting list, he thought. Briefly, he considered selling the Y-wing, but he’d been through enough changes; he wanted something familiar around.
Wyl would be fine. T5 would be, too. So would Nath Tensent. He needed to check in on the team he’d gathered so far and keep them out of trouble before paying Bansu Ro another visit.
He remained under the bomber in the cloister for a long while anyway.
Night came.
When he left, he was thinking about Nasha Gravas.
Why was New Republic Intelligence keeping an eye on him, he wondered, and what were the odds they needed a team of deniable freelancers?
Caern Adan? Maybe your dream will come true after all.
III
It wasn’t the nightmare, but it wasn’t great, either. Chass na Chadic’s mustering-out pension had been reduced to one year thanks to her disciplinary record. Eleven months after Jakku, that left her not much cash and only a month to find more. Therapy had been more frustrating than helpful, and when she’d missed an appointment (not her fault—the tram had broken down) and been told the bearded snake-woman she liked at the clinic couldn’t reschedule for another month (“But a droid is available right now!” the cheery desk clerk had offered), she’d given up on therapy altogether. She’d stuck around Corulag anyway, because it was where her medcenter was and she didn’t have anywhere better to go.
She’d tried getting in touch with Nath once. He’d spoken with her on the medical frigate over Jakku, and he’d told her to reach out if she needed work. But he hadn’t responded by the time her messaging account was suspended, and there was no guarantee he’d received the transmission anyway.
S
o she’d bummed around Curamelle for a while, left that city for Crullov when she’d seen the difference in rental prices, and ended up in an apartment the size of a closet in a complex occupied by death stick addicts and scrappers. She’d kind of enjoyed it—tight quarters meant all the neighbors knew one another—though she never got a full night’s sleep. Then she’d come home intoxicated after a really good evening watching the bands at the Little Orto street fair and found security forces raiding the building. That had ended that chapter of her life as a New Republic veteran.
It hadn’t gotten better from there. The dark thoughts crawled back into her head and stopped ever crawling out, even on half-decent days. Sometimes she hid her blaster just to make toying with it harder.
The last push came when she spotted two Children of the Empty Sun showing holos of Let’ij outside a free clinic. She’d seen a lot of new cults sprout since Jakku, but it was the first time she’d heard anything about the Children operating outside Cerberon. She’d felt a severe homesickness and an even worse nausea, and the next day she’d started pulling together credits for a shuttle offworld. She hadn’t been sure where she was going; but she’d known she had to act.
All this had brought Chass to where she was now, standing at the door of a small-time cargo operator on Spirana. City lights created a luminous fog to the east, but the fields around her were desolate. No one came this far into the sticks unless they had to.
Chass had to.
She hit the door buzzer. A minute later the heavy metal barrier slid open, revealing a sparse waiting room with windows looking onto a private office and a landing pad. Emerging from the office was a woman in a mechanic’s jumpsuit, whose stride hitched only an instant when she saw Chass.
“This is a surprise,” Yrica Quell said.
She didn’t sound surprised, though that was true to the woman Chass remembered.
Not much else was. Quell held herself differently; there was a casual slouch in her usual rigid walk, and her hair looked like she’d been trying to keep it in a military style while trimming it herself. Her nose was still crooked.
Chass thought about turning around, but it was too late. Leaving would’ve been more humiliating than staying.
“You owe me,” Chass said. “For all the garbage you put me through? You owe me big. We agree?”
“Yes,” Quell said.
“Okay.” Chass nodded, and jutted her cane at the woman’s chest. “So here’s the thing: I need a job, and I don’t have a lot of options.”
“Come on in, and we’ll talk,” Quell said, and if a hint of a smile touched her lips it came and went so fast that Chass couldn’t be sure what she saw.
IV
Wyl Lark lived in the village of Ridge, where he’d spent most of his youth and grown to manhood. He used his days to befriend and care for the sur-avkas who’d grown old or been injured or become sick or were otherwise dependent on the village to survive.
He rarely flew.
He lived among the many siblings and cousins he’d loved for as long as he could remember, and spent his nights drifting among the communal homes. Yet he found himself reluctant to share stories from his years away, and too many ordinary things had changed in Ridge for him to feel like he’d never left. Ridge was still beautiful, and the people still kind; but Ern had died, and Yanda now sent children to carry cider to the houses instead of carrying it herself, and a species of bright-orange flower had displaced the wild sunberries. They were small changes, yet together they informed the character of a place. Wyl struggled to reconcile what Ridge was now with what it had been in his mind.
He had nightmares. He’d never had nightmares as a pilot, but he had them now.
Others among the Hundred and Twenty had similar troubles, he knew. He met with them now and then, and they spoke quietly and hiked through the forests and confessed fears and the joys war had brought them—joys that shamed them now. They exchanged frustrations about their prosthetics. They all agreed that the people of Home looked at them differently, and some were bitter but most were not.
These meetings were too few, because the Hundred and Twenty came from across the planet and arranging a gathering always proved challenging. Still, Wyl found the meetings reassuring.
His life wasn’t a bad one, as he often reminded himself. Yet neither did it feel complete, over a year since he’d returned from his last journey offworld—his journey to see Nath Tensent, taken in part because he’d been restless weeks after arriving.
Homecoming was more difficult than he’d ever imagined. But his love for his world was undiminished.
One day, having journeyed to Cliff to consult with a Sun-Lama about treating a sur-avka’s mangled claw, Wyl spent the afternoon with one of Cliff’s elders. He’d called Conna Dew his friend since he’d been fourteen years old and she had scolded him for spying on a stranger’s wedding feast. “Either you’re interested, and you go introduce yourself and ask to learn; or you’re not, and you give those poor people their privacy,” she’d told him, and they’d been close ever since.
“My old caretaker,” Conna was saying as they yanked the desiccated husks of dead creeper vines off her house, “has decided at the age of ninety-nine to become a Sun-Lama. Which would be perfectly fine if he didn’t insist on sharing every detail of the secret lessons with me! I don’t care about the ‘esoteric teachings,’ but I told him I wouldn’t lie if someone asks me what he’s revealed.”
“Maybe the Sun-Lamas will exile you both,” Wyl said with a smile. He felt a vine disintegrate in his palms as he tugged.
“Oh, I’d be delighted to see them try. But I think they’d only ask me politely to leave, and I’d say no, and the punishment would be me getting the side-eye for the rest of my life.”
“May it be a long one,” Wyl said, and Conna snorted.
They worked in comfortable silence before she said: “You’re looking healthier than last time.”
She’d rarely asked directly about his struggles reacclimating. Twice he’d confessed everything anyway; she’d always been good at giving him space to speak.
“It’s getting better,” he said. “It’s still hard.”
She nodded brusquely. “Well, I’ll mention this at the entirely wrong time, then, since who knows when I’ll see you next: The Hik’e-Matriarch is talking a lot about the galaxy these days, and what it means to be part of the New Republic. She’s worried we’re too isolationist.”
“Isn’t isolationism one of our founding principles?” Wyl asked.
Conna laughed. “That’s what I said! But apparently she thinks it’s better if we have some influence on what the New Republic is up to, unless we want to split off altogether. Me, I think she feels we’ve got political clout after that business rescuing everyone at Jakku, and she’s loath to see it forgotten before we get anything for it.”
“ ‘Use the voucher before it expires,’ ” Wyl said. “That’s what they’d say in the purse worlds.”
“I know what a voucher is, Wyl Lark. I do read.” She shook her head, then winced as her tug at another vine sent a cloud of dirt billowing from the cliffside. “Anyway, she’s sent out a call—same as she did for the Hundred and Twenty—only this time she’s looking for ambassadors and diplomats. One of them’s going to get to be senator.”
Wyl laughed, and collected debris in his arms to drop in the pile they’d gathered. When he was done, Conna stood with her back to the wall of the house, arms folded across her chest. She waggled her eyebrows.
“You’re not serious,” he said.
“You’d be good at it! You’re a hero—you’d go in with credibility,” she said.
“I’m a deserter. That doesn’t help.”
“Yes, but Home loves you, and that means you never need to worry about reelection.”
“I don’t know anything a
bout politics.”
“You know everything about building relationships. Let your aides and the Hik’e-Matriarch write the bills and advise on policy, at least until you figure it out. You’d be there to represent us, because you understand Polyneus. And you understand the galaxy, Wyl.”
He watched her a long while, trying to understand what she saw in him.
“I’ll think about it,” he said.
V
Six years after the war they were together again. Most of them, anyway.
“—this guy keeps telling us, ‘You pay for that shipment or I’m going to come back with my men and make you pay.’ He’s at fault, though, and he’s a freaking flower salesman. We figure it’s bluster—”
“I’m sure this story ends well.”
“It ends great. So one day, we hear the door buzz and there’s these three Chevin brothers with hands big enough to smash your head into jelly—”
Yrica Quell looked across the living room table and listened to Chass and Wyl. Chass leaned over the lavender-smelling dessert plate that had briefly borne store-bought icecake, almost knocking over her wineglass as she gestured. Wyl was less animated but he sat straight-backed as he listened, smiling gently as recirculated air blew his hair across his scars.
Yrica sipped her brandy and closed her eyes.
“—sees the mandala hanging on the office door and says in this deep, ridiculous voice, ‘You are follower of the Church of Nine Ways?’ I’m not an idiot, so I lie and say ‘Yes’—”
It had been two years since they’d last seen Wyl, but they’d both been on Spirana while Wyl was visiting Perithal, so Yrica and Chass had thrown something together and he’d arrived at the house that evening. Yrica suspected he’d gone to some trouble to arrange it; she also suspected it was more for Chass than for her, but she didn’t mind. He was good company.
“—and suddenly it’s me and Quell and the three Chevin staring down this guy, who gets real apologetic real fast—”
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