“The good news is that I got shot while shooting a trooper,” Zade continued. “I didn’t stick around to see if he expired because I had to run. I’m guessing, at the very least, he’s in the medbay today. I believe I got him in the groinal area, and blood was involved. Bit of a planning error in the armor construction there.”
“If the troopers want to be able to walk or run, they need that articulation,” Archex said, looking beyond exhausted. “Believe me: First Order scientists have tried everything. Seal up those vulnerable rifts and they might as well be frozen in carbonite. It’s hard enough to move as it is.”
“And how would you know?” Zade shot back. “Look, mate, I know you’re desperate for something to do, but acting like a kriffing expert about everything is not a hobby.”
Archex snorted. “Don’t tell me my business. You don’t know me.”
Zade leaned back, sneering. “And why would I want to? Got a stick up your rear, don’t you? Rules this and caution that. Thinking that way never gets nothing done. Sit at home while the rest of us go out and work, then call me lazy. How would you know anything? Probably faking that limp so you don’t have to risk your biscuit.”
Archex stood, his box seat squealing over the stone floor. “Fine. You want to know the truth? Then let me tell you, because I’m sick of your disrespect and dismissal, and I’m sick of being ashamed of my past.”
Vi’s eyes widened in alarm and she shook her head at him, the tiniest movement. Now was not the time to sow distrust in their little group. The truth could wait. Surely he knew that.
But he kept on anyway.
“I know how their armor works because I used to be one of them. A First Order stormtrooper. Then a captain. The Resistance kidnapped me, and I informally defected.”
“You were one of them?” Dolin asked, his voice half wonder and half horror.
Archex put his shoulders back and one by one met everyone’s eyes. Vi could see the war inside him, the programming fighting the integrity, the self-disgust fighting the pride. “From the time the First Order rescued—no. Abducted me as a child, yes. I was one of them. Was. But now I’m with the Resistance.”
Zade looked to Vi. “And you knew this?”
Vi settled back, echoing Archex’s confidence and challenge. “Of course I knew. I’m the one who kidnapped him from that Star Destroyer. I’m the one who brought him to Batuu. I’m his partner.”
“And you trust him?”
Vi nodded, slowly. “With my life.”
“He’s Cardinal, isn’t he?” When Vi looked up, Kriki hovered in the doorway, half cowering behind the stone as if Archex might suddenly rise up and strike her. “When you call out in the night, begging Captain Cardinal to stop. That’s him, isn’t it?”
Vi sighed heavily. “It is. He tortured me. On the Absolution. And then he let me escape. And then, when Captain Phasma had nearly killed him, I rescued him. So now you know our history. But you also need to know that Archex has given the Resistance invaluable knowledge on all echelons of First Order training, propaganda, programming, weapons, philosophy, even the interiors of their ships and their strategies. Without question, his scales are balanced. General Leia Organa herself handpicked him for this mission. And if I can forgive him his past and move on, you should able to do so as well.”
“Was he still with them when they were building Starkiller Base? And during the Hosnian attack?” Kriki asked, her voice tiny.
Archex sat down again, collapsing into himself, his head in his hands. “I was in the First Order while they were building the weapon, but I had no idea. The First Order’s intel is on a need-to-know basis. They don’t tell the troopers until a plan has become a victory, and even then the reporting is heavily biased. At the time, I had been brainwashed to believe the New Republic was evil and dangerous.” He pounded the table with his fist, once, with meaning. “I promise you, Kriki: I had no part in Starkiller Base. I was on the Absolution for over a decade and never saw outside her walls. I didn’t build the weapon, I didn’t aim it, I didn’t push the button. I didn’t even know it existed.”
“But you cheered when it happened, didn’t you?”
Archex’s head dropped. “No. By then, I was a prisoner of the Resistance, and seeing that footage is part of what brought me here. It was unfathomable. It was evil.” He looked up and met her eyes. “But if not for Vi, I would’ve cheered with the rest of them. Because I was programmed to do so. Because I was brainwashed and chemically controlled.”
Dolin pointed at the stolen stormtrooper helmet and armor neatly piled among the rest of their cargo crates. “So you wore one of those?”
“I was fitted with my first armor as a child. Wearing it became more comfortable than not. It was my life.”
“What was it like? Wearing it every day?” The way Dolin asked it wasn’t admiring; it was more like a child asking about an animal carcass they’d found in the road, horrified and morbidly fascinated.
“It felt like belonging,” Archex told him, his voice raw with emotion. “You know who you are, in that armor.”
Archex gazed around the room sadly. He looked more broken than ever, without their trust. Without their friendship. It was like losing his armor, all over again. Everyone was closed off now—arms crossed, eyes hard. Kriki was sniffling, trying not to cry in front of them but unable to leave.
“It was easier,” Archex said softly. “When I wore the armor, people trusted me, looked up to me. I was given clear orders. I knew who I was and how to serve a purpose. This?” He gestured around the chaotic jumble of goods in the ancient cave, at the distrustful faces around the table. “This is a lot harder.”
No one said anything, and Archex got up and left.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Zade asked, looking at Vi, angry, his wet eyes betraying the hardness in his voice.
She shrugged. “It’s not mine to tell.”
“We trusted you!”
“You trusted us both,” Vi said. “And you found us worthy of your trust. That doesn’t have to change. Archex is the same man he was yesterday. He’s the same man he was when he rescued me from Kath’s interrogation. He’s the same man he was when he tried to kill Captain Phasma. Given the chance, he would step between any one of you and an enemy and gladly take the hit.”
“You can’t know that,” Zade spat. “Programming is programming.”
Vi cocked her head. “So you don’t believe people can change?”
Zade sighed and shrugged, leaning back as if trying to reclaim his carelessness. “Not enough to sleep next to the once-enemy with blasters and blades scattered all around us.”
Vi looked to Dolin. “Do you feel the same way?”
Dolin hunched down a little. “Ylena told me Archex could be trusted, and I trust Ylena, and I trust you, so…I want to trust him? But it’s hard.”
Nodding along, Vi felt twenty years older. “It is hard. But sometimes, it’s worth it.”
“I have calculated the odds of Archex betraying the Resistance,” Pook said conversationally. “If anyone wants to know.”
Vi stood.
“Shove those odds up your can, Pook. We have a job to do. It happens today. Everyone has a role to play. I can only urge you to place your trust in Archex, as I have, or at the very least, to place your trust in me and in the plan we made together. Because if we fail today…”
“We all lose,” Dolin finished for her.
“No,” Kriki said softly. “We all die.”
THE MORNING…HAD NOT GONE WELL. And Vi wasn’t sure how to fix things.
Any camaraderie or cohesion they’d had was gone. They haunted the ruins, drifting aimlessly from room to room in the semi-darkness. Kriki studied datapads and muttered to herself. Zade tried to find something alcoholic to drink, then tried to discover where Vi had hidden the stims, then spent the rest of the day sulking in
conspicuous places. Dolin worked on his crankbike, making minor upgrades and talking to Waba as if the hog were responding—and quite argumentative. Archex simply disappeared. Vi looked for him—but not too hard.
He was right—he didn’t have a real function for this afternoon’s raid on the First Order transport. His job was to stay behind and carry on their work for the Resistance if things went wrong. His job was simply to stay away and stay alive. If the worst happened and the stormtroopers managed to capture or kill Vi, at least they would go away and hopefully leave Batuu in peace.
So what would happen, Vi thought, if she just turned herself in?
What if she just ignored their risky plan and gave herself up?
Would the troopers—and the First Order’s leadership—assume the supposed Resistance base would wither away without her? Would they stop looking? Would Archex be able to carry on, perhaps with Ylena’s help and maybe Kriki and Dolin’s eventual trust, if they lived through it? She knew that Zade would be gone the moment Archex was in charge and his liquor budget dried up. And considering he’d openly shot a stormtrooper last night, part of Zade’s sulk surely focused on the fact that as long as there was a First Order presence on the planet, he couldn’t go back to the only well-stocked watering hole on Batuu. The troopers would be on the lookout for him there, now—or have a toady just waiting to run off and tattle. So that was at least one recruit gone. Which would most likely make Kriki and Dolin lose faith and drift back to their safer, more predictable lives.
Vi was the glue that held them together, and without their Mother Hen, this Resistance refuge was doomed.
And then she considered what would happen if she just gave up completely, sold everything they had, and used the credits to buy passage offplanet for her entire team. She might return to the general a failure, but there was still something she could do for the Resistance, still hope for her recruits. They could find meaningful work and help to turn the tide alongside the fleet.
But then what would happen to Batuu? To Savi and Ylena and Jenda and Oh-li and Salju?
She knew the answer to that. Eventually, General Hux would discover that she’d killed his officer and escaped his grasp, and he would retaliate by blasting Black Spire Outpost to rubble.
So that answered that question.
Self-sacrifice wouldn’t work, and running away wouldn’t work.
The only way forward was a complete commitment to success. This group needed her. The Resistance needed her. Batuu needed her.
They would follow the plan, together.
Either she’d die today, or she’d succeed.
They had everything they needed to triumph. Like General Organa had told her regarding building the refuge here from seemingly nothing, she just had to make it work.
DOLIN WAS SITTING BY THE CENOTE with Waba when Ylena showed up around lunchtime. She was carrying take-out boxes from Ronto Roasters, and both Dolin and his hog looked up with pleasure.
“Thought you might need some strength today,” she said, handing him one box and gracefully sinking to the grass beside him to open the other. When Waba snuffled close, she laughed and scratched the bristly head and produced a handful of Kat Saka’s plain grains, Waba’s current favorite treat.
They ate companionably for a little while, enjoying the chime of the waterfall tinkling into the pool below and flowing into the cenote. Dolin often came out here to sit and relax and think about things. Back home—or back at Grana’s house, he should say now, since it wasn’t really home if you weren’t welcome there—he’d had plenty of time to enjoy nature, falling asleep against a haystack as the gruffins grazed or riding his crankbike out into a new patch of forest that he’d never seen before as Waba hunted for treasure. He was amazed that no one else among the Resistance recruits seemed to enjoy being outside, but he was glad to learn that Ylena did.
“Did you give Savi my apologies?” he asked, once he’d wiped his mouth on a napkin. “For not working today?”
“Of course. He knows how important it is, what’s happening. He has no choice but to stand outside the conflict if he wishes to stay in the outpost and not end up in Oga’s bad graces, but he’s aware of…the value of the Resistance, let’s say. He also believes you’re a good worker, and he’ll be glad to have you back at the scrapyard.”
Dolin didn’t consider himself a smart man, but he understood well enough what she was saying: If Vi’s gambit failed and their cause was lost—and if Dolin lived through it—he still had a job, a way to survive in the outpost.
“I appreciate that. I guess there’s always his apartment block.”
Ylena sipped her Batuubucha tea and nodded. “Yes. Savi always takes care of his Gatherers.”
“I’m glad you’re not coming with us,” he confessed. “I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
She patted his upper arm, and his skin went all over with goose bumps. “Don’t worry. Everything will happen as it must.”
“That’s…not very comforting.”
“The Force will guide you.”
“But how do you know?”
Ylena gave her mysterious little shrug. “I just have faith.”
He snorted. “Faith.”
He used to have faith. Faith that his parents would live forever, and after that, that his grandmother would take care of him. And look where that had gotten him.
Ylena put down the remains of her flatbread and settled closer to him, leaning into his side, her head against his shoulder. He went very still, terrified to move. It was like watching dugar-dugar in the forest, creeping close and barely breathing, hoping for just another few precious seconds of knowing the unknowable.
“I can feel that you’re hurting, and I know you went back to the settlement to visit your grandmother and try to recruit for the Resistance. I can only assume that your trip didn’t go so well. But you must remember that people fear change. You come from a place where new things are not only feared but actively ignored and pushed away. Where strangers are repelled and advances in technology and education are snubbed. It’s easy to live in a bubble without examining your biases. It’s hard to change minds and hearts when the people are so determined to remain in the dark.” She squeezed his arm. “But there’s hope. There’s you. You saw something that made you open to experience, and now you’ve got a destiny. You’re doing something great for the galaxy, playing your part in a larger story. And your grandmother might not be able to see it, but I do, and I’m proud of you.”
Filled with a daring he’d never yet experienced, knowing that despite her faith in the Force, her faith in him, it might all end soon, he put his arm around her. When she relaxed against him, it was like starmarks singing at night, a great shivering crescendo in his heart. He put his lips to her temple and murmured, “The galaxy is so much bigger than I’d ever imagined. I don’t want to lose it now.” And then, more softly, “I don’t want to lose you.”
Ylena turned her face up to his, her eyes full of smiles and sunshine and trust and, yes, so much faith.
“You won’t,” she said, firm and true, and then she kissed him.
THE WALK TO THE FIRST ORDER’S mobile habitat felt like a walk to the gallows—and yet also like stepping into the cockpit of a podracer. Vi knew her people were nearby, ready to play their roles, and yet she walked alone, out front, the bait in an intricate trap with many moving parts—and many potential downfalls. She didn’t stim up beforehand because her adversaries weren’t supposed to expect a fight. She just kept her eyes down on a junky old metal detector Ylena had borrowed for her from Savi, a piece of equipment his scrappers often used when out in the forest, looking for ancient artifacts or crash sites.
It was almost time.
Her throat was dry as she moved the scanner over the springy ground, close enough to the transport’s new resting place that if she stepped on a twig and a trooper was standing outsid
e, they might hear it. She could see little flashes of the two-story monstrosity through the trees, the outside a dull-gray camouflage. Thanks to Archex’s tracker, it hadn’t been hard to find.
“Mother Hen, in position,” she said into her comlink.
With her heart pounding in her ears, she edged closer and closer to the clearing made when the massive transport had broken through the treetops, creating its own landing pad on the forest floor. She hadn’t yet seen signs of any troopers patrolling outside, but she knew that most of them were either searching the outpost for her or carrying similar scanners as they hunted Batuu’s forests for her secret Resistance headquarters. With Kath gone, there might be only one or two soldiers sticking around to guard the mobile base. And hopefully, thanks to the absence of a commanding officer, they would be sloppy.
“Devastatingly Handsome Space Hobo, in position,” came Zade’s voice through her own comlink, and Vi was able to breathe again.
That meant that Zade and his blasters were sneaking up behind the transport from the other side, along with Kriki and her datapad. Dolin would be somewhere nearby with his bow and arrows and all the blasters they’d stolen off dead stormtroopers.
And that was it.
Archex and Pook had remained in the ruins. If this gambit failed and Vi died today, they could only hope that the First Order would believe that the Resistance on Batuu died with her. On a useless planet with no comm system and no officer, they would most likely return to the fleet. With this transport and its troopers gone, Archex could continue building the Resistance facility with Pook’s help. Even if none of the outpost locals were willing to join the cause, even if Zade and Kriki and Dolin left, at least there would be a refuge where Resistance ships could land, fuel up, and wait for orders. It was one more hidey-hole in a universe that increasingly felt too small, thanks to the First Order’s aggressive presence.
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