Piett had known, logically, that beneath the mask of Lord Vader was a human.
He had not known how broken a human, though.
The shiny black helmet descended over Lord Vader’s head…or what remained of it. Raw, wrinkled skin was streaked with red veins and painful-looking welts. A tall neckpiece seemed to do the work of Lord Vader’s spine, supporting the bulbous mass of flesh stretched over the patchwork skull. Piett’s calculating mind counted more than a dozen electrode-bolts screwed into the neckpiece, connecting to Lord Vader’s nerves, before he had the wherewithal to look down, swallowing the bitter bile rising in his throat.
It was only a few moments. Seconds, really.
But more than enough to see just how horrific it was beneath the mask.
He’s a walking corpse, Piett thought, and the words reminded him of Ozzel, his body writhing at his feet, eyes bulging, tongue lolling, trying to gasp out words but unable to form a single sound other than that weird, sputtering choking noise that sometimes woke Piett at night.
Piett allowed himself one breath.
Then he looked up.
With a hiss and a metallic click of the connectors locking into place, the helmet was sealed over Lord Vader’s bare skull. Piett could imagine the darkness inside the all-black helmet, the light sensors that must communicate to the eyes—Does he have eyes? Piett wondered, the thought making his blood cold. Had he seen Lord Vader’s mangled face, would nothing but gaping black holes stare back at him? There must be nerve endings, surely, but they could connect to optic sensors, and…
Piett was used to being ruled—and ruling—by fear.
But this was different.
This was…
What turns a man into such a monster? What makes a man choose this over death? Death seemed easy. Ozzel had made it appear so. But this way of living…Why would Lord Vader choose such pain?
Lord Vader’s seat turned in a slow circle. Piett should feel the power and intimidation from him, but when he saw the black suit, all he felt was…
Pity.
It took so long for Piett to recognize the emotion that he almost could not name it. Pity. Prior to this, Piett had never seen anything but the black of Lord Vader—the black helmet, the black cape, the black gloves curled into a fist. Lord Vader was a commander, a near-god with his power over life and death, cloaked in the universe’s darkness.
But the pale white flesh with a waxy sheen, so much like a rotting cadaver…
That had made Lord Vader a man.
Mortal.
Pitiable.
Weak.
Lord Vader’s seat was fully turned, and the commander—the man—looked through the dark eyepieces of his helmet toward Admiral Piett.
“Yes, Admiral?” Lord Vader said, his voice even, emotionless.
Piett almost wished that Lord Vader had allowed his rage to leak into his voice. His eyes darted to Lord Vader’s hands—fingers relaxed against the rests of his chair, palms open.
If Piett wanted to sit beside Emperor Palpatine, now was the time to realize that he no longer feared Lord Vader, and without that fear, Lord Vader had lost some of his power against him.
It was not courage that destroyed fear. It was pity.
But Piett had what he wanted—the Executor. The admiralship.
And if being beside the Emperor meant being behind a mask, he did not want that.
Suddenly Piett heard, as clearly as he had a few days before, Lord Vader’s voice: You have failed me for the last time.
Ah.
There it was.
The fear was back.
Fear was power.
Piett forced the breath from his body, and with it, the image of the man. Lord Vader was no man. Piett would not allow him to be. He imagined that weak, feeble thing he had seen under the mask. And he killed it in his mind’s eye.
He put that corpse beside Ozzel’s in the graveyard of his memory.
Lord Vader was only the mask. Piett would never again allow himself to think of Lord Vader as anything but the black fist, clenched, choking away the life of anyone who did not properly fear him.
There was something calming in that idea. Piett had not liked those moments when Vader had been more man than mask.
“Our ships have sighted the Millennium Falcon, my lord,” Piett reported without a quiver in his voice. Fear, after all, gave him strength.
But even though he bowed his head, even though he accepted the command that followed, even though his heart surged at Lord Vader’s reprimand after he informed him of the situation, Piett could not quite keep the pity that lingered out of his eyes.
Much as he wished to erase the moment, he had seen past Vader’s mask.
And that had cracked his own.
RENDEZVOUS POINT
Jason Fry
Wedge Antilles had always wanted to fly.
When he was a kid on Corellia, he’d finish watching an episode of a somber documentary about starfighters (Zero Hour: The Tentraxis Campaign), then dive into a breathlessly written memoir written by a retired ace. (Fly Fast and Die Young!)
Those digi-dramas and holonovels had been heavy on descriptions of high-g maneuvers and defiance shouted over comms, but light on other parts of life as a starfighter pilot.
For instance, none of them mentioned that you couldn’t sleep for more than a few minutes while in a cockpit. Pilots talked about sitting in the “easy chair,” but “torture rack” struck Wedge as a better description. The restraints cut off your circulation, but release them and you’d wake with a start when you nodded off and smacked your helmet into the control panel.
Nor had he learned that you sweated profusely during combat and emerged from battle drenched and rank. Which was fine if you had a shower waiting, but not if you had to stay crammed in a cockpit for hours. When a starfighter canopy opened after a long mission, flight crews stepped back to avoid getting a noseful of funk.
And Wedge had never heard about a starfighter ace heroically donning “maximum absorbency undergarments” before soaring off on an extended mission. Which, he had to admit, was probably for the best.
After the evacuation of Echo Base, Wedge had switched from a T-47 snowspeeder to a T-65 X-wing, but he’d been stuck in his cold-weather flight suit, and his X-wing’s heater was stuck on FULL. He’d reported that problem weeks ago, but every technician on Hoth had been working to get the T-47s adapted to the planet’s brutal cold. And a broken heater counted as an up gripe—meaning the fighter was operational—rather than a down gripe that would have left him grounded.
He’d been relieved at the time, but now he was sweaty and parched.
“I’ve made some terrible life choices,” he muttered to himself.
He winced as his astromech, R5-G8, beeped a question. Or more accurately, screeched a question. Something was wrong with the droid’s acoustic signaler, leaving it sounding like an agitated mynock.
“Just talking to myself,” Wedge said, grimacing at another fusillade of whistles. “Yes, people do that. No, I don’t need a diagnostic check once we reach the rendezvous point. No, do not log this exchange for a medical droid to review. Yes, I’m sure.”
R5-G8’s personality quirks had developed personality quirks of their own: Wedge had never worked with an astromech more prone to citing regulations. That up gripe would get fixed, he vowed—if not with a memory wipe, then with a wrench.
More piercing squeals. Wedge eyed the readout’s translation, ready to tell the astromech to shut himself off, Alliance flight-operations regulations notwithstanding.
But his anger leaked away when he read the droid’s question.
“I know,” he said. “We had a lot of losses at Hoth, Arfive. Too many losses.”
The first Rogue Squadron pilots to die had been Zev Senesca and Kit Valent, killed when their T-4
7 was shot down by an Imperial walker. That had been the start of a numbing parade, culminating with the loss Wedge could barely bring himself to think about: Derek Klivian, killed along with his gunner when he plowed his damaged T-47 into an AT-AT’s head.
Derek Klivian. Who’d hated being called Derek, insisting that his friends use his childhood nickname, the one Wedge had thought ridiculous for a grown-up or anyone trying to become one.
Hobbie.
They’d met as Imperial cadets at Skystrike Academy, playing endless hands of sabacc in the barracks. They’d defected to the Alliance together, fleeing Montross with the rebel agent Sabine Wren. They’d battled the Empire together at Atollon, Perimako Major, Distilon, and a dozen other worlds.
It was Hobbie who’d tried to comfort Wedge—in the awkward, emotionally stunted way of starfighter pilots—after he’d been left off the duty roster for the raid on Scarif. Days later, it was Wedge who’d tried to comfort Hobbie after he’d been grounded for the Battle of Yavin.
Now his friend was dead, and a galaxy without Hobbie struck Wedge as impossibly cold and cruel.
Another squawk from R5-G8.
“We’ll have to see,” he said. “I’m sure there will be a briefing once we reach the rendezvous point.”
They flew in silence for a while, surrounded by the endless churn of hyperspace. Then R5-G8 squealed a different question, one that actually made Wedge smile.
“Yes, I’m sure Artoo-Detoo will be there—and that he’ll have brought Commander Skywalker with him.”
* * *
—
But Wedge was wrong.
After the latest briefing, he wiped sweat from his brow and returned to the pilots’ ready room aboard Home One, known as the Hub. He got a slice of Kommerken steak—the Hub had a surprisingly good chef—and plopped into a chair across from Wes Janson, an old friend who’d served as his gunner on Hoth.
“How you holding up, Wes?”
“Oh, splendid, Lieutenant Commander,” Janson said, stroking his stubbled chin. “Filling up on grub but sweating it all off, thanks to our hosts building military vessels that double as saunas.”
“Well, it is their ship,” Wedge pointed out.
Not that he disagreed. Conditions humans and many other species considered comfortable struck Mon Calamari as borderline arctic and arid, leading to constant negotiations.
“Double-M have anything to say?” Janson asked. That was a nickname in the ranks for Mon Mothma, the Alliance leader.
“We’re waiting for more personnel to reach the rendezvous. But remaining on high alert.”
“Hurry up and wait, in other words. Any word from Skywalker? Or the princess?”
“No. But critical personnel often have to use the full scatter protocol. Ackbar probably has them making extra hyperspace jumps for security.”
Janson scowled and looked down at something in his hand.
“Sure, but then they’d be hours late. It’s been what, three days?”
Wedge had to think about that for a moment—time had become a smear of anxiety and waiting for news that didn’t come.
“I heard the princess told her transport to take off without her,” he said. “She was going to hitch a ride aboard the Falcon.”
“So maybe Solo’s junk heap finally disintegrated in hyperspace,” Janson said, shaking his head. Wedge saw that the object he was holding was a small metal cylinder.
“What is that thing you keep playing with?”
His friend looked startled, then embarrassed.
“It’s a miniature aerosol dispenser. One of the techs back at Echo Base made it for me.”
“I’m not following.”
“Double-tap this little doohickey here and twist it to the right, it starts a timer. Two hours later, the contents disperse as a mist. Twist it back to the left, it shuts off. Pretty simple.”
“And the contents?”
“Tauntaun bull musk. Actually, it’s even worse than whatever you’re thinking, Lieutenant Commander. None of the stable hands would help me, so I had to express the scent glands myself. I used gloves, but my hands smelled so bad that I scrubbed them like thirty times. First with water, like a smart person. Then with solvent, like a stupid one. Took the top layer of skin right off.”
“You’re certifiable, Janson,” Wedge said. “You do know that, right? What in the name of every Corellian hell could you possibly need that for?”
“It was a surprise for Hobbie. He was next to pull recon duty—a three-day hop.”
Ah. Now Wedge could fill in the rest. Janson and Hobbie had been inseparable companions despite being apparent opposites: Janson could crack a joke during a hair-raising firefight, while Hobbie never failed to ponder the worst that could happen. How many of Janson’s pranks had Hobbie endured? A dozen? A hundred?
“I’m pretty sure that would have counted as a war crime,” Wedge said.
Janson laughed—but it wasn’t the easy laugh Wedge was used to. It was more of a harsh bark.
“I know, right?” Janson said. “He would have been so mad. I was going to make sure I was right there in the hangar when he got back—so I could see his face before I started running. Oh, it would have been amazing.”
“He would have killed you. And the court-martial would have ruled it justifiable homicide.”
“Probably,” Janson said, still staring down at the little device. “I keep finding this dumb thing in my pocket. Hobbie’s gone, but I can’t bring myself to get rid of it. Isn’t that strange?”
It wasn’t strange at all, Wedge thought, groping for a way to reassure his friend.
Before he could find it, a protocol droid clanked up to their table. Its plating was a brilliant blue, and some bored rebel had taken an inordinate amount of time adorning its torso with a gold Alliance starbird.
“I have no idea how our undercover agents keep getting discovered,” Janson said.
“Espionage work is not part of my programming,” the droid said primly, then turned to Wedge. “Lieutenant Commander Antilles? Ess-fiveveethree, at your service. Your presence is requested in the chancellor’s office.”
Wedge looked quizzically from the droid to Janson, who shrugged.
“What does the chancellor want with me? I’m just a starfighter pilot.”
“I am not at liberty to disclose the purpose of the meeting,” S-5V3 said.
Wedge scooted his chair back. Janson was still gawking at the droid’s gaudy paint scheme.
“But if you were programmed for espionage…wouldn’t that same programming keep you from admitting it?” he asked, tapping his temple.
“Ignore Wes,” Wedge told the baffled droid. “It’s the only way to stay sane.”
“I will update my personnel-interaction database accordingly,” S-5V3 said.
* * *
—
To Wedge’s surprise, the person waiting for him in the chancellor’s office wasn’t Mon Mothma but a dark-eyed woman wearing a flight suit, her black hair pulled back in a tight bun.
“Lieutenant Commander Antilles,” she said briskly. “You can call me the Contessa.”
“What?”
The Contessa sighed. “I dislike when people say ‘what’ when it’s perfectly obvious they heard the words. What you actually mean is, ‘I don’t understand what you said, could you please explain it to me?’ ”
Wedge regarded her for a moment.
“I don’t understand what you said. Could you please explain it to me?”
“Eventually. Provided you’re still alive, and provided you’ve earned it. Sit.”
Wedge sat. The Contessa picked up a datapad and flicked her finger across its surface, her eyes moving rapidly. She scrolled down again, then a third time. Wedge couldn’t tell if she was reading quickly or had no interest in what she saw. Then she s
et the datapad down and regarded him above her steepled fingers.
“You were born on Corellia.”
“That’s right.”
“The Empire hasn’t been kind to your homeworld. And yet you joined them. Why?”
“Because I was young. I was flying bulk cargo out of Corellia—produce and spare parts, mostly—and it was boring. So when the Empire recruited me, I said yes.”
“And is that why you defected from Skystrike Academy? Because you got bored again?”
Wedge said nothing, his thoughts going back to the day he wished he could forget. The day he’d learned he’d lost people he loved, and that the Empire had been responsible. But he wasn’t going to tell this strange, rude person about that. If it wasn’t in his file, it wasn’t her business.
“No,” he said instead. “That’s not why.”
He remembered reaching for his TIE helmet and realizing his hands were shaking. The idea of flying an Imperial fighter suddenly struck him as obscene. The Empire kept order, but that order was a product of terror. And it was training him to become an agent of that terror. That was the moment Wedge had vowed—first only to himself, then later to Hobbie—not to let that happen.
The Contessa was waiting for an answer.
“I’ll explain it eventually,” Wedge said. “Provided you earn it.”
He folded his arms across his chest, wondering if she’d throw him out of the office and not particularly caring if she did.
Instead she smiled. “So there’s a little Corellian in you after all.”
“When I need it. What’s this about, Contessa?”
“Rebuilding your squadron.”
Hope flared in Wedge. “The fleet’s reuniting?”
“No,” the Contessa said, and that hope guttered out as quickly as it had kindled. “There are…complications. We’re maintaining our position for now.”
“We’re down too many pilots,” Wedge said. “Starting with our commander.”
“Skywalker hasn’t returned,” the Contessa said. “We have to accept that he may not.”
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