She took a deep breath, forced her body to calm itself. “So they don’t know we’re here?”
“All signs point to no. I sent Hahnee to the city to look around, find out what she can. I was waiting for her to report back before I brought the issue to you.”
“And so you’ve heard back?”
He nodded affirmatively. Hesitated before he spoke. “It seems the First Order is here on a diplomatic mission.” He bit off those last words as if they pained him, the sarcasm in his voice thick. “It seems they’ve lost some very expensive ships recently and need to levy some taxes to raise revenue. They’ve given us five days for the Ryloth shipping guild to voluntarily tithe to them before they blockade the shipping lanes in and out of the system and start leveraging tariffs.”
Leia didn’t mean to laugh. She was relieved when Yendor joined her. After a moment she gathered herself and asked, “Will they do it? Form a blockade?”
Yendor shrugged. “Already the business council is considering its options. Chancellor Drelomon thinks they are bluffing but who wants to take a chance? What I don’t understand is why they would choose to blockade Ryloth, way out here on the edge of the galaxy. It doesn’t make a lot of logistical sense.”
“Pride,” Leia murmured, and then louder, “Pride. They think a victory here will be a show of strength. To turn notoriously neutral Ryloth would be a feather in someone’s cap.”
Yendor leaned back, thinking. He templed his fingers, touching the pads together. It was a habit Leia had noticed. “It’s possible,” he finally admitted. “Or maybe we’re not seeing a piece of the bigger picture here. Nevertheless, the fact remains that your window for staging any kind of mission out of Ryloth has just shrunk considerably.”
“Five standard days,” Leia acknowledged. “To get everyone here and figure out what comes next.”
“Less than five days. Drelomon’s already making noise about what drew the First Order’s attention to us. Most think it was bad luck, but if he decides it was the Resistance, I worry he’ll betray you.” Yendor’s lekku twitched with some emotion. “I would never let that happen,” he said, voice earnest.
“I would never ask you to fight your own government, your own people on my behalf.”
“Then let us hope it doesn’t come to that.”
They sat together in silence, each of them thinking their own thoughts, until Yendor said, “What do you wish to do, Leia?”
“We stick to the original plan.” What else could she do? The Resistance ships were expected to arrive tomorrow. Poe had assured her that they would all be on the far side of the largest moon by then, awaiting her signal.
“All right,” Yendor said, sounding resigned. “Who knows? Perhaps the spirits of our ancestors will smile on you.”
Yendor had explained that tomorrow was the Longest Night, a Twi’lek holiday where all three of Ryloth’s moons were at their lowest phase and darkness was most complete in the most populated hemisphere. The holiday kept most people indoors to spend a quiet evening with their families. A good night to avoid prying eyes. It was even possible, Yendor told her, that people this far out in the remote southern desert had never heard a starfighter engine and would attribute any sounds to the restless ghosts of the dead who were known to roam on Longest Night. Leia found that doubtful, but Yendor didn’t seem concerned, so she wouldn’t be, either. Although Poe and the others making planetfall under the cover of the restless dead seemed a bit too fitting.
“We can hope the First Order isn’t looking our way,” he continued, “but there’re no guarantees. You should apprise your commanders of the situation and tell them to be prepared to fight.”
“Of course,” Leia said, but inside her heart felt heavy with disappointment. She had wanted a reprieve, a moment of peace away from the war, if even for a few days. She still bore the injuries from the Raddus, still carried the bone-deep weariness that had settled around her after Crait. Fight. Flee. Fight again. She closed her eyes briefly, letting the sorrow she felt follow its course. When she opened them again, Yendor was watching her.
“We’ll be ready to fight,” she assured him. “Even if it kills us.”
“Which it will, eventually,” he said, a sad smile stretching across his mouth. “But perhaps not yet.”
She wanted to argue the point, but she saw the truth in his words and let it lie.
* * *
—
Leia watched Poe, Black Squadron, and the rest of the hope for the Resistance come in over the open desert. They practically skimmed the ground, running low with minimum lights despite the dark of night. If she hadn’t known they were there, and what they were, she might have thought them some sort of natural phenomenon, a swarm of light-emitting migrating insects or some strange desert illusion. As the ships grew closer, she heard the telltale howl of X-wing engines. Well, there was no disguising that. But you had to be close to hear it, and Yendor had assured her that the locals, what few there were out here, were loyal Rylothians.
The last of the ships, this one not a starfighter but a small transport that looked more yacht than anything else, crossed over the desert and disappeared into the mountain below her. She sighed. That was it, then. She’d counted ten X-wings, an A-wing, Poe’s loaner from the Hutt, two smaller civilian transports, and that yacht. Not a lot with which to fight your enemy but more than they’d had yesterday. And so it would go. Every day more than yesterday until they had a fighting force. Or at least that was the idea. She tried not to think about the losses they would take along the way.
Leia left the library to go and greet the arriving fleet. As she made her way down the tunnels to the incoming ships, she was joined by R2-D2. She hadn’t seen the little droid in days. She guessed he was mourning Luke in his own way so she had let him have his space. But she was glad to see him now, and he rattled off a happy greeting.
“Aren’t you supposed to be helping Rey with repairs to the Falcon?” she asked.
R2-D2 replied.
“That’s good news,” Leia agreed. “I’m glad it’s done. Now we see what Poe and his Black Squadron have brought us.”
Another round of beeps, and Leia nodded.
“Inferno Squad, too,” she amended. “All good pilots. Good people. But we need leadership, Artoo, not just soldiers. I need thinkers, strategists, battle experience.”
R2-D2 beeped.
She laughed. “You do have a lot of experience. You would make a good leader.”
They left the side tunnel and entered the main hangar. It hummed with noise and activity and the smell of ships that had recently been flying among the stars. Leia embraced it all. It was expectation. It was hope. It was what would keep them alive.
The ships groaned as they settled into the Ryloth gravity and dry desert air. Excited voices called to one another in greeting, and astromechs whirled and beeped requests for fuel and repairs.
“Leia!” a voice called, and she looked up to find Poe Dameron heading her way at a steady clip.
R2 beeped a question and Leia pressed a hand briefly to his head. “Yes, go say hello to Beebee-Ate,” she said, and the droid spun merrily away.
“Commander,” she greeted Poe as he approached. He flushed brightly. He ran a hand through his thick dark curls and dipped his chin, chagrined.
“General,” he amended his greeting with a nod. “Sorry for the informality. Just glad to see you.”
“I’m glad to see you, too, Poe.” She hadn’t really meant to correct him, just remind him that they were here in front of potential new leadership and that they should set an example. “Walk with me and tell me what we have.”
He walked her through the hangar, pointing as they went. “The two pilots there you know from Black Squadron, Jessica Pava and Suralinda Javos. The woman with them is ex-Imperial-officer Teza Nasz. They found her on Rattatak after fighting in the death pits.”
He pointed to the eastern quadrant where Jess and Suralinda had parked their ships. Jess was bent over, talking to her astromech. Her dark hair was matted on the side with what looked like blood. Leia made a note to make sure the pilot got medical attention immediately. To her left, Suralinda was greeting a woman who had made her way over from the civilian transport ship. The woman was imposing, unusually tall and rippling with what seemed to be hard-won muscle. She wore a one-shouldered jumpsuit that looked like it had been stitched together from a mixture of animal hides and discarded armor. Her exposed arm displayed an elaborate stretch of short slashing lines that had been cut into her dark skin from shoulder to elbow, and below the elbow she wore a leather bracer. Her thick hair was dyed blood red and she held it back in dreadlocks that trailed down her back.
Leia stifled an incredulous laugh. “That warlord is ex-Imperial?”
“So they say,” Poe said. “She was an officer in the Imperial Navy. Some sort of genius strategist involved in the Battle of Jakku, but when that went sideways for the Empire, she was assumed dead on the Ravager. Turns out she just went to ground and only popped back up on Suralinda’s scope because of a story about Rattatak fielding a shockball team in some major tournament. Suralinda recognized her from a background picture. They used to know each other.”
Leia pressed her lips together, thinking. “Well, she looks like a warrior, not a strategist, but perhaps I shouldn’t judge by looks alone. If she dropped off New Republic scopes that thoroughly and was able to rise to power on Rattatak, she’s probably both. What’s her name, again?”
“Teza Nasz.”
As if hearing her name, Nasz turned her head toward them. Her face was painted in streaks of ocher and coal lines vertically crossing her cheeks, and she narrowed dark watchful eyes at Leia. Leia returned her gaze until the woman turned away. Oh, she would be interesting.
“Who else?”
“Princess Leia?” an excited feminine voice cut in. Both Leia and Poe turned.
Zay Versio beamed at them and stepped forward to shake Leia’s hand. The young pilot’s short dark hair was tousled, and her eyes looked tired under the thick black eyebrows that dominated her delicate face. But she smiled gamely, and her handshake was strong.
“It’s good to finally meet you in person, Zay,” Leia said, greeting the young pilot. “Where’s Shriv?”
“Over here,” a blue-skinned Duros said, joining them. He looked tired, too. His skin looked sallow under the cave lights, and lines ran like rivers under his large red eyes. He swiped a hand over his noseless face and grinned through thin, almost nonexistent lips. “Good to see you again, General.”
“How was your mission?” Leia inquired.
“Well, we survived,” Shriv said laconically. “But I did get a rash in an unmentionable place that still hasn’t cleared. Don’t suppose you have some kind of cream for that?”
Leia gave him a grave look. “I’m sure someone in medical can fix you up.”
“And I could use a nap. And some food. I hear they’ve got fruit here. And meat. Is it true, or did we arrive too late for all the good stuff?”
“The Twi’leks have been very generous. There’s plenty to go around.”
“Sweet!” Shriv rubbed at his face and stifled a yawn that threatened to crack his jaw. “Then I’ll excuse myself. I really got to fix up this rash.”
“Did you find anyone, Zay?” Leia asked once Shriv had wandered off.
The young girl nodded. “Over at the civilian transport. I think you’ll be pleased.”
They made their way over, Zay filling in with small talk about her and Shriv’s mission. “We looked everywhere,” she said, sounding exasperated. “Most of the leads were dead ends and some of the people we were trying to find were…well, they were dead. More dead people on our list than alive.” Zay’s face clouded over. “And a handful that have just disappeared. One day they’re going about their own business and the next they don’t show up for work. Their families have no idea where they are, the authorities won’t take it seriously and say they must have run off, but it doesn’t make sense.”
“Disappeared,” Poe chimed in, expression concerned. “Maz told me something similar.”
“What does it mean?” Zay asked.
“The First Order, most likely. If we know about these potential allies, so do they. They’re just getting to them first.”
They had reached the edge of the ramp to the transport shuttle. A motley group of people were gathered there. Leia spotted Charth’s two children moving among the crowd, offering hot towels and pouring pitchers of water into clay cups so the newcomers could refresh themselves. There was a low hum of chatter among the group that broke off as Leia approached.
A man separated from the small crowd, and Leia’s brows raised in disbelief.
“This is—” Zay began.
“I know who this is,” Leia murmured. “General Rieekan.”
The Alderaanian man grinned through a nest of thick wrinkles, his blue eyes still as bright and intelligent as Leia remembered. He stepped forward and embraced her. After a moment he stepped away, holding her at arm’s length. She could see tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. “How long has it been, Leia? Thirty years?”
“Feels more like forty,” she said with a rueful shake of her head. Leia felt a surge of relief. A familiar face, and one she had looked up to long ago. Emotion threatened to overwhelm her, and she felt her own tears looming. The burden she had been carrying since Crait lifted, if only a little.
“I’m glad you’ve come,” she said, her voice warm with feeling.
“I couldn’t not come. When Zay and Shriv showed up at my door, the answer was obvious. And Ryloth beats Hoth as a command post, even if we are in the middle of nowhere.”
“To die by ice or fire,” Shriv quipped morosely as he joined them, the silver corner of a packet of medicated cream peeking out of the breast pocket of his jacket. “Our options are underwhelming.”
“Who says we’re going to die?” came another voice.
Rieekan stepped aside to usher the new speaker into their circle. “I brought a friend,” he explained.
“Princess Leia.” The Dressellian male who had spoken greeted her with a bow. His fur-lined cream-colored cape flared out around his short frame. The fabric was a shade lighter than his orange-tinted skin, and his hairless head was a map of brain folds. He wore a jaunty black patch over one eye; the other gleamed dark as night.
“Welcome,” Leia said politely. The Dressellian looked familiar but she couldn’t quite place him.
“This is Orrimaarko,” Rieekan said, saving her from having to ask.
“Of course,” Leia said brightly, remembering immediately. “The Battle of Endor. You were there.”
“Ah, not in the thick of the ground fight like yourself,” Orrimaarko demurred. “But I did my part.”
“You helped plan the attack,” she recalled. A battle strategist. Wonderful!
He nodded. “A decisive victory it was, thanks to you.”
“I had help.”
Shouting erupted somewhere behind her, and Leia turned, searching for the source of the argument. A commotion, back near the quadrant where she had seen Jess Pava and Suralinda and that formidable ex-Imperial. Voices rose in what were distinct fighting words, and then that telltale sound of knuckles against the flesh of someone’s cheek.
“A fight!” Zay shouted, sounding excited.
Poe and Shriv took off running toward the growing melee, and Leia let out a long heavy sigh. Who was it? Yendor’s people? Black Squadron? That ex-Imperial who looked like a walking invitation to rumble?
Well, she thought as she and the rest of the crowd headed toward the fight, she’d find out soon enough.
WINSHUR WATCHED WITH NAKED fascination as the prisoners arrived. Stormtroopers escorted the
m in, legs chained in ankle shackles as they shuffled single-file from the transport vessel to stand in line for inspection. Winshur had pressed his jacket and shined his boots well past the point of necessity for the occasion. Part of him had known his preparation was excessive, but now that he was here to greet the ship, he was glad he had done it.
He had meant to stay in his office and observe from his window, perhaps send Monti Calay down to dole out the work assignments and the rest. Sending Monti would have been a stroke of genius, a well-barbed insult. How it would have offended them to have someone of such a low rank be the only person there to greet them, a clear message letting the prisoners know they weren’t important, not important at all. But in the end Winshur had decided that he personally should oversee the transfers. He trusted Monti to do such a simple job, but if anything went wrong…well, he couldn’t have that happen. And besides, he couldn’t resist seeing the prisoners’ faces up close. He wanted to know what it was like to fall from such a height. If it marked a person in some noticeable way, some impenetrable stain on the soul that showed through.
But he was disappointed.
These former senators, former diplomats, and once powerful people of the New Republic were irritatingly bland, basic even. They looked like any other downtrodden creatures who had spent time in chains and darkness and labor and were destined for more of the same until their deaths. Nothing…nothing…they were nothing special at all.
He snapped his fingers and Monti Calay stepped up beside him, ready to serve.
“My datapad,” Winshur commanded, holding out a hand.
Monti hesitated.
“Is there a problem?” Winshur asked.
“No, sir. It’s just…”
Winshur waited.
“What did they do wrong?” his assistant asked.
“Their crimes against the First Order are numerous.”
“Are they going to kill them?”
“Is that what you think the First Order is, Monti?”
“No. Well, I’m not—”
Resistance Reborn (Star Wars) Page 13