Relief flashed across his face, but he looked to Poe for confirmation.
“Sure, why not?” Poe said. “I’m Lorell…what was the other name?”
“Shda. He’s a notorious—”
“Yeah, I got that part. Okay then.” He checked the chrono he wore on his wrist, the same one everyone else on the team had been issued for the mission. “We don’t have much time before the auction starts. I suggest we head for Coronet City.”
“Aren’t you going to change your clothes first?” Suralinda asked.
“What’s this?” Finn held a hand to his ear theatrically. “We have disguises?” He rubbed his hands together gleefully. “This mission just gets better and better.”
“Historical clothing,” she corrected. “I guessed your sizes, so they might not fit perfectly. But I think we can make it work.” She took the bags that Poe had been patiently holding and held them up individually. “This one is for you,” she said, handing Finn a silver jacket and pants. Even through the plastic, Finn’s outfit flashed and sparkled in the light.
“And this one’s for Poe. I mean, Lorell Shda.”
Poe took the suit she proffered and sliced open the plastic with his thumbnail. The suit was a solid gleaming black and consisted of a velvet-lapelled jacket, a vest, and a pair of slim-fitted pants. A white button-up shirt and a black ascot embroidered with fine red threads finished the outfit.
“No shoes?” he asked, jokingly.
“Oh, I got both of you shoes. A few to choose from in the back, but you really didn’t want me guessing your shoe size,” she said, winking.
“We should go,” Charth said. “Time is passing quickly.”
Poe nodded, sliding his tuxedo into the bag. Finn looked disappointed. “Don’t worry,” Poe assured him. “We can dress on the way to Corellia.”
“It’s not that. It’s just, I got arrested at the last fancy party I was at.”
“Really?” Suralinda sounded impressed.
Finn shrugged.
“Well, this may be fun after all!” Suralinda quipped.
Finn grinned, his face lighting up. “Oh, we’ll have fun, if it’s the last thing we do.”
“There’s the spirit!” she said, delighted. “This might get us killed, but at least we go out in a blaze of glory!”
Usually Poe liked the bravado, the inevitable big talk before a mission. It was part of the process, psyching yourself up before putting your life in danger. But now it bugged him. “How about we don’t go out at all,” he said, his voice a bit sharp.
“Live free, die young,” Suralinda said, unconcerned. “Like heroes in a story.”
But this isn’t one of your stories, Poe wanted to protest. If we die then the good guys lose, the Resistance has no future, and evil is that much closer to overtaking the galaxy. There’s nothing heroic about that.
He held back his dark thoughts, knowing it would do no good for anyone to hear them. He said simply, “Let’s just try to stay alive.”
“Sometimes death comes for you,” Charth said quietly, black eyes on Poe, as if he could read his mind. “No matter how hard you try.”
THE BRACCA GUILD OF Scrappers, Union Local 476, commanded Dross Squadron to land their transport shuttle on a long narrow platform that jutted out into a murky sky like a leaf on a dead metal tree stripped bare by winter. Around them were other platforms, just as long and narrow and open to the elements, all spiraling down the central trunk of the landing structure. Shriv could see a few more ships here and there, arriving or possibly awaiting clearance to leave, but overall it cut a desolate picture.
It was eerie up here in the thick fog, and while Shriv had the feeling that there was a hive of activity somewhere below them, lost to sight, it felt like they were all alone. He didn’t like it. Alone meant singled out. It meant not blending in. Their whole plan was riding on blending in.
“Well,” he said to no one in particular. “No use delaying. Let’s go see the salvage capital of the galaxy.”
They all began to unbuckle their restraints and move toward the exit at the back of the ship.
“Except for you,” he told Zay, holding out a hand to stop her.
She paused awkwardly, already in the act of standing up. “What?”
“I want you to stay with the ship.”
She looked back at the others, who had stopped in the corridor to listen. “I’m not a child,” she growled, low enough for only his ears. “And you heard Pacer. You’ll need someone like me to look like a team, to look like a Rigger.”
“I know, but Pacer can be our daredevil climber. I need you here more.”
“If you’re trying to protect me after all we’ve been through…”
He shook his head sharply. “That ain’t it, kid. You’re our safety switch, our last line of defense. I’m leaving you behind because I trust you. If things go sideways down there because some junker gets an attitude and decides to try and kill us, I need you to find us and get us out of here—or if it’s worse than that, get back to the Resistance and keep fighting.”
Zay flushed, looking somewhere between flattered and frustrated. “Shriv…”
“I know you’re touched,” he said, waving a hand, “but save the pretty words for my funeral. And make sure I get one, okay? Something nice. Oh, and make Leia go, and all the rest of those bigwigs. Make them say nice things, like he was a giant among mere mortals, or he was strikingly handsome despite that persistent rash he acquired on Inya Prime.”
Zay held back a smile. She nodded.
“Okay, then,” he said after a moment. He clapped a hand against her shoulder. “Take care, space baby.”
He marched out of the ship, the others letting him pass first. All but Zay, who dropped back into her chair. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he should have said more. Said something about how she meant the world to him and maybe he was protecting her but he was allowed to do that, right? He was allowed to protect his kid. He hesitated, but then he went anyway, and he didn’t look back.
* * *
—
The transport train rattled and hummed as it wound its way through the soupy atmosphere on the planet’s surface. The train was a monorail that swayed and rolled in parallel to the curve and swoop of the geography around them. Geography that Shriv couldn’t see out of the narrow gap of a smog-blackened window. But he certainly felt it as the train leaned left, and then right, and then farther right, and he braced his feet against the filthy floor and held tight to the ceiling strap. Someone bumped against him, forcing him to step back and reset his stance. Shriv waited for a muttered apology but none came. He looked around at the bowed heads and resigned set of the many hard and unfriendly shoulders that were crowded into the train with himself and Dross Squadron. The train rolled to the side again, and everyone shifted accordingly, but still no one looked up. Maybe it was better this way, he thought. He’d been worried about standing out when they landed up there on that bare platform, and now they were lost in anonymity, just like he wanted. So why was he so anxious?
On the next turn, he let himself bump gently against the person to his right, Wesson. She bumped back, and he felt the hard metal of a blaster concealed beneath her nondescript Scrapper’s jumpsuit. Pacer’s sister had left them each a jumpsuit and work belt concealed under a pile of trash in a maintenance corridor a few blocks from the train station. Six sets of guild uniforms, of which they only needed five, in various sizes and configurations that fit them mostly, if not well. Pacer’s was the best. Raidah’s was too short at the ankles but too loose through the waist. Wesson’s was too long altogether, and she’d had to roll it up at both the feet and hands. Shriv’s kept riding up in the back, which honestly felt like what he deserved. Stronghammer’s…well, Stronghammer’s hadn’t fit at all, but he’d managed to combine the girth of two tool belts, including the one Zay would have used
had she come, to rig something that looked appropriate for the job. Or at least Shriv hoped so. He had surreptitiously inspected the other Scrappers on the train. Dross Squadron all seemed to fit in well enough. Pacer’s sister had left a note to head for platform thirty-three, where she would meet them. She had bribed a handful of her team members to call in sick so Dross could pass as fill-in scrubs. Pacer seemed confident that it would work, and it was better than the other plan Shriv had, which involved more shooting and running.
They pulled into a station and the train slowed, finally coming to a halt. The mechanical doors slid open with a hiss of steam and Shriv, afforded a momentary view, peeked out to the world beyond the train. He wished he hadn’t. Both Stronghammer and Pacer had mentioned a giant creature of some kind that consumed metal like a living trash compactor, but Shriv wasn’t prepared for the glimpse of the massive mouth he had seen in the distance, all those teeth. And was that grayish-pink thing a tongue? He shuddered as the doors mercifully closed.
He was so distracted by the mouth that he didn’t immediately notice the new passengers that the train had picked up, and by the time he did, it was too late. Stormtroopers. Four of them, with rifles held close to their chests. He straightened, hand sliding toward his own concealed blaster, but then he dropped his hand into the pocket of his jumpsuit and allowed his shoulders to slump in feigned indifference. The stormtroopers weren’t doing anything. Just riding the train like everyone else. He knew the First Order had a presence here, and he’d hoped, perhaps foolishly, that with a party as small as Dross Squadron they might get in and out undetected. And they still might, if they kept their cool.
A solid thump against his shoulder, and this time he didn’t even bother to expect an apology. But then Pacer was passing him, and he caught a glimpse of the young man’s expression. Shriv groaned quietly. Pacer’s face was a mask of rage: mouth set in a grim line, jaw clenched, eyes narrowed on his target. A target that was clearly the stormtroopers.
“Kid,” he whispered, grasping for Pacer’s arm. But the pilot shrugged him off, intent on his mark.
Shriv cursed under his breath. Reason was telling him to let the boy go, allow him to get in whatever mess he wanted to. Let him fight, get arrested, or worse. They had a higher mission, and Pacer Agoyo could be sacrificed. But his instinct was screaming at him to stop the pilot. Tackle him to the ground if he had to, anything it took to stop him from reaching those stormtroopers and starting whatever personal war he meant to start with them.
Shriv realized he had never asked Pacer exactly what he had against the First Order. Nobody in the Resistance had any love for the First Order, of course, and pretty much all of them had lost friends, family, and sometimes homes and entire planets to their atrocities. But Shriv was the leader of Dross Squadron and he had allowed Pacer to join them—encouraged it because they needed his contact on Bracca—and Shriv hadn’t even asked him why he hated the grimy planet-killing bastards. He hadn’t gotten to know Pacer at all. Just humiliated him in front of the rest of the squad.
“Not smart,” he muttered under his breath, and he swore to apologize if they made it out of here in one piece.
Which, frankly, was looking less and less likely.
“What are you going to do?” came a voice in his ear.
It was Wesson, leaning in close enough that her breath licked hot at his skin, making him shudder involuntarily.
“He’s going to start a fight,” Raidah said, leaning in to cite the obvious.
“And get us all killed,” Stronghammer added.
“I can see that,” Shriv spit, annoyed.
“Well, are you going to stop him?” Wesson asked.
“How do you suggest I do that?” He said that a little too loudly, and a few heads turned toward them, curious. Shriv made himself take a deep breath. Pacer was almost at the stormtroopers now. They hadn’t noticed his approach yet, but it was a matter of seconds.
The train pulled into the next station. Shriv scanned the scrolling feed of information above the door. Platform thirty-two. One more stop and they were there. But this wouldn’t wait.
“Damn space babies,” he muttered and started to move.
The doors opened, disgorging a handful of guild workers and letting on six more stormtroopers. Shriv moaned quietly. Ten against five in close quarters on a moving train. He didn’t like the odds. And, surprise enough to stop his heart, maybe Pacer didn’t, either. He pulled up short, no more than four or five meters away from confronting the stormtroopers, and he allowed the Scrappers who flowed through the open doors to push him away, back toward Shriv and Wesson and Stronghammer and Raidah at the far end of the train.
He sighed with relief as the younger pilot stopped at his shoulder.
“What did you think you were doing?” Shriv asked, his voice considerably calmer than it had any right to be.
“Troopers raided my hometown,” he said, every word sharp with bitterness. “Hurt my sister. Burned our house to ash.”
“That’s bad,” Shriv said, the words themselves inadequate perhaps, but the emotion behind them, the empathy…he made sure Pacer heard that.
The young man looked up, brown eyes wide with grief. “Yeah.”
“And we’ll make the bastards pay,” Shriv assured him. “But we don’t make them pay by punching a few grunts on a train. We make them pay by winning a war.”
Pacer stared at him, unconvinced.
“Listen.” Shriv hesitated. Looked around the train as they leaned into another curve. “We need you,” he said, his voice a harsh whisper. “This mission…we can’t do it without you. You understand?”
The young pilot narrowed his eyes. “Is this your apology for what you said to me on the ship?”
“Geez, kid, what can I say? I got a mouth, and leadership…eh. Not really my thing. But I’m glad you’re here. And yeah, I’m sorry.”
His words seem to mollify the young man. “We’re gonna win this war?” he asked.
“Definitely.” It was a lie, but he sure said it with conviction.
Pacer shot one last glare at the stormtroopers before grabbing an overhead strap and letting himself sag forward. “Yeah. Okay.”
Shriv exhaled, relieved. One disaster dodged.
The train slowed as it came into the next station. The info scroll informed them that this was platform thirty-three.
They had done it. Made it after all.
He motioned Pacer forward, and he and the rest of Dross Squadron filed off the train. Stronghammer had just crossed the threshold, bringing up the rear, when Shriv heard the voice.
“Hey, you, all of you! Stop right there, by command of the First Order.”
“Keep walking,” he murmured to his team, and they all picked up the pace.
“I said, Stop!” The sound of rifles being raised into position behind them and the distinct click of some kind of vibro-weapon engaging brought them up short.
“Hands up!”
Shriv lifted his hands as he turned, hoping his team had the sense to follow his lead. He put on what he felt was a friendly smile. But considering he wasn’t the friendly-smile type, really, and Duros didn’t have much in the way of lips, he knew his smile wasn’t very convincing.
“Something wrong?” he asked, his voice sounding like someone befuddled but wanting no trouble.
“Her,” the stormtrooper in the lead said, motioning toward Raidah. “She’s coming up wanted on my ID recognition. A known criminal on Gheia Six.”
Shriv stared at Raidah incredulously.
She tossed her dark bangs out of her eyes and shrugged, hands still raised. “I maybe liberated some First Order funds for redistribution a while back. I seriously didn’t think it would come up.”
Shriv closed his eyes, forcing himself to calm. Get to know your crew, he repeated to himself, so you can weed out the personal vendet
tas…and the wanted criminals. Otherwise, Shriv Suurgav, it’s your own damn fault.
“We don’t know her,” Wesson said, stepping forward. She had her hands up by her ears, tight to her shoulders. Shriv could see the glint of the hilt of a blade at her neck, halfway hidden by her indigo hair. “She joined our crew at platform twenty, and we just let her tag along.” She stepped a little closer. She gestured with a raised hand. “Take her.”
Stronghammer started to protest—Shriv could see it in the set of his chin as he opened his big mouth—but Pacer ground his heel into Stronghammer’s foot, and the big man was stopped short before he could get a word out.
The stormtrooper in the lead paused, eyes moving over them all, as if deciding what to do. His posture loosened a bit, and he pointed toward Raidah. “You! Come quietly, and we’ll let the rest of you go.”
“I don’t think so,” came a new voice from behind the stormtroopers. It was dry and brimming with disdain, and Shriv felt his belly drop. The white-armored guards parted smartly to let the owner of the new voice through. A man, dressed in a gray uniform, bearing the insignia of a First Order officer. “Colluding with a known criminal is an offense,” he said, eyes roving over Dross Squadron. “We take them all in for questioning.”
“Now, listen here,” Shriv said, ready to try to bluff his way through, but it was too late. Wesson’s fingers closed around the hilt of the knife hidden at the back of her neck, Pacer and Raidah drew their blasters through the holes in their jumpsuit pockets, and Stronghammer let out a roar loud enough to shake the ceiling above them.
The stormtroopers froze, stunned, for a crucial second. It gave Wesson enough time to throw her knife. It landed true, right in the First Order officer’s throat. He clutched at the blade, eyes bulging, before he slumped to the ground, dead.
And then all hell broke loose.
POE CHECKED HIS REFLECTION in the mirror and, quite frankly, liked what he saw. He had been dubious of Suralinda’s sartorial choices, expecting that she had picked him out something loud and flashy to wear to this auction, despite Maz’s proclamation that he, or rather Lorell Shda, was a refined and dapper criminal. But he should have trusted her. The Black Squadron pilot had picked him out a fine suit, indeed. A black tuxedo cut to fit with matching vest and pants and a white shirt made of the finest fabric, textured and solid under his fingers. The suit didn’t require a tie, but rather an ascot. He arranged it around his neck now, the silk soft against the roughness of his chin. He should have shaved, but a razor, Suralinda had forgotten. No matter. The day-old beard suited the look.
Resistance Reborn (Star Wars) Page 20