Galaxy's Edge

by Delilah S. Dawson

  “I’ll ask you again: Where is the Resistance hiding?” he asked.

  Cardinal grinned, showing bloody holes where teeth had been.

  “What Resistance?” he slurred before laughing. “What could there possibly be to resist?”

  He laughed and laughed and laughed.

  He almost sounded giddy, and it made Kath uncomfortable.

  No person this helpless, this pathetic, should be laughing like that.

  So he punched Cardinal again, this time in his already swollen eye.

  When even that didn’t get a response, when Cardinal stubbornly continued to maniacally laugh, Kath stepped back, chin on his bloodied knuckles. He could hear his heart pumping against the stump of his ear, but he no longer cared. His entire world revolved around making this idiot talk.

  “Do you want promises, then?” he asked, leaning close. “Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll let you go? Tell me where to find Leia Organa, and I won’t return to Batuu and raze this planet to the ground?”

  Cardinal looked up, one eye swollen shut and the other bloodshot beneath lashes sticky with blood. Even without his helmet, the man was a symphony in red.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he rasped.

  Kath got right up in his face, smelling the hot scent of copper and salt and cheap caf rolling off him. “What doesn’t matter?”

  Something in the cockpit started beeping.

  Cardinal tipped his head back as if staring at the stars outside.

  He smiled, a brutal, wolfish thing.

  “Nothing does,” he said. “You lose.”

  And then the ship exploded.

  IT WAS THE TINIEST THING, JUST a bright flash and a trailing white tail.

  But that was all they needed.

  Vi screamed, hugging Kriki as they jumped up and down. Zade was rolling around on the ground, laughing madly. Dolin and Ylena were sharing the sort of kiss that felt like the good kind of explosions.

  It had worked.

  Against all odds, their plan had actually worked.

  “I did it?” Kriki squeaked. Then, more confidently, “I did it!”

  “We did it,” Zade said from the ground. “The world’s smallest Resistance cell has pulled off the greatest victory the galaxy has ever known! I mean, probably. I don’t pay attention to history, really.” He flopped onto his back, smiling. “Ah, but revenge is a lovely feeling.”

  They watched the white tail until it disappeared, and when Vi looked down again, reality hit her.

  Archex was gone, lost in that faraway flash.

  Down here, on the ground, they were surrounded by corpses and wreckage—stormtroopers, farm boys, outpost locals, crankbikes, weapons. The beautiful forest smelled of blasterfire and oil and blood instead of growing things, and the trees wore their wounds, bleeding sap. They’d hurt this place. Vi was hurt, too. Her legs wobbled, and she caught herself, but Dolin noticed and put a hand on her arm to steady her.

  “Vi, are you okay?”

  She shook her head. “No. No. So not okay. Let’s go home.”

  Dolin looked around, too, and his face fell. “I was so busy looking up that I forgot…that they…my friends…that’s my cousin Sylvai…” He started shivering, his eyes pouring tears. Ylena wrapped her arms around him and pulled his head down into her neck as if to shield him from the carnage.

  “Sometimes it’s better to keep looking up for a while,” Zade said with that rare glimmer of poetry. “We’ll come back tomorrow and look down again.”

  They piled into Savi’s speeder, and Ylena piloted them back to the ruins. As they pulled up outside the cenote, Vi almost expected to see Archex hurry out and stand under the overhang, blaster in hand, scanning the clearing for intruders with his usual serious glare. But only Pook galumphed out, his round black screen scanning them.

  “Archex didn’t make it, then?” he asked.

  “No,” Vi said.

  “My algorithms could’ve told you that.” Pook gave a robotic sigh. “I was almost starting not to hate him.”

  Zade hopped out of the speeder first. “Me too, droid. Me too. Now come see to our Mother Hen. She’s wounded.”

  “So are you. So is Dolin,” Vi protested.

  And then Dolin was carrying her like a baby, and she had no idea how she’d come to be in his arms.

  “But—”

  “Let Pook take care of you first,” Dolin said. “Please.”

  “But your friends. On the bikes. Some are hurt.”

  He paused, uncertain. “Is it okay? Can I bring them here?”

  Vi gave the saddest, smallest chuckle. “Anyone injured by the First Order in that fight is part of the Resistance, as far as I’m concerned. That’s what the Resistance is all about. Helping the people who need it most. You don’t need a starbird patch or rank to do that.”

  He placed her gently on a cot in their makeshift medbay, and as she stared up at the ceiling, she remembered Archex helping Pook place the lights. The ruins were a good place for their command center, and they were safe now, but…even if Archex had died way up in space, he would always haunt these caverns. While she’d been running around, getting in trouble, he’d been here, left behind, doing the grunt work, steadily laboring to make it livable, to make a place for the Resistance. To make a refuge a home.

  Every day, in pain and trying to discover who he was without his armor and cape, Archex had walked these halls and done what needed doing, whether he liked it or not. Even when he felt like it wasn’t enough, like it wasn’t worthwhile. He’d made the caf for all of them every morning, roasted vegetables and tubers at night. He hadn’t complained much, and he’d followed orders, and…

  Well, great. Vi was crying again.

  “Let’s make you more comfortable,” Pook said, appearing overhead.

  “What does that mean?”

  She felt the injection before she saw it.

  “Pook, what was that?”

  “A mild sedative. My scans indicate you have a concussion—again—plus some internal bleeding, and yet another broken rib. And since you refuse to rest, I have made the executive decision to force you to do so.”

  “But I need to—”

  “You don’t.”

  “But you’re not allowed to do that! You’re—”

  Pook sighed. “A droid, and a member of your crew. So until you find a humanoid doctor with a more cheerful bedside manner, you’re left with me. Perhaps you will rest more easily knowing that my intellect is vastly superior to yours and unencumbered by a traumatic brain injury and pesky emotions.”

  The world was going fuzzy and dark, and Vi settled down, smiling.

  “You miss him, too,” she mumbled.

  “Things will not be the same without him,” Pook said. “Now do us all the favor of going unconscious.”

  So she did.

  VI HEALED, SLOWLY. DESPITE THEIR OWN supplies and the superior medpacs they’d stolen from the First Order, she had a long time to sleep in her cot in the medbay, and then rest in her niche in the cave wall, and then sit around the base, feeling her pain and coming to terms with the fact that Archex was really gone.

  Dolin and Kriki continued working for Savi, and Waba’s nose proved so useful for finding artifacts that they were soon able to purchase some larger pieces of scrap for the facility, including a junky old landspeeder that Kriki was able to fix up. Several of Dolin’s friends, the ones who’d fought against Kath’s forces and survived, began to frequent the ruins, and some even moved in for good. Vi taught them how to shoot, and Zade taught them how to swear, and Kriki got the flight simulator running so they could practice piloting and one day maybe join the Resistance fleet. The growl of crankbikes pulling up soon became a welcome sound, especially since someone almost always brought a gruffin haunch or a barrel of sour ale to share. Before she knew i
t, Vi had ten part-time recruits.

  Zade somehow wormed his way back into Oga’s good graces, and although she wouldn’t release his ship, he was allowed in the cantina again, where he discovered he made an excellent and entertaining bartender. It was understood that if he attempted to recruit anyone or shot anyone again, he would be permanently banned. But apparently one brush with infamy and danger was enough, as he settled down and became Vi’s source for intel, listening to the travelers and locals alike when they’d forgotten anyone sober was about.

  As he said to Vi one night, “Would you ever have thought I’d live past thirty, much less enter into a career of espionage on behalf of the Resistance? For I am an egotistical thing, and there is no I in spy.”

  “Sure there is, she told him. “It’s just really good at hiding.”

  He cackled at that, and Vi smiled benevolently but didn’t tell him that being a spy was about more than listening to drunks and bringing home news of the First Order. Maybe Zade wasn’t trained, and maybe he was hyperbolizing, but he’d stepped into the ring with Kath and his troopers not once but twice and lived to tell the tale. And what’s more, he’d stayed with them when he could’ve left. The Resistance needed more recruits like him. No point in bursting his bubble.

  Salju came to visit a few times, bringing Vi treats from the outpost and a pretty necklace from The Jewels of Bith, a gift from a few of the marketplace vendors to thank Vi for her defense of Jenda and Oh-li—and for repelling the First Order forces. Salju also told her that her old transport was becoming part of the local habitat, and that the breeding pair of lahiroo that had built a nest there now had a crew of squawking babies.

  But most of the time, during the workday, it was lonely. With only Pook around until dinnertime, the corridors were too quiet, too full of echoes. The day came when Vi couldn’t stand it anymore. Even though she clearly wasn’t yet healthy enough to work, she took the old speeder and followed Savi’s Path to the scrapyard, where she was welcomed with open arms. Ylena and Dotti and the other Gatherers hugged her extra tight, and Dolin fussed over her and insisted on pulling her cart and unloading her basket for her. After putting up with their cosseting, she was soon sorting and joking and gossiping like usual, and the voices in her head went mercifully silent. When she found an old trunk filled with dusty brown robes and a few dirt-crusted statues, Ylena was overjoyed and took her hands.

  “Savi will be ecstatic,” Ylena said. “This is a sign. You’ve done great things to help this planet and these people, and the Force will smile on you as long as you continue fighting for what’s right.”

  Vi looked down, feeling awkward. “It’s just some dirty towels and rocks, but I’m glad you’re glad.”

  Ylena shook her head. “There’s so much you don’t know, so much you can’t see. But the effects of your actions will ripple down throughout the galaxy. One day, these objects you’ve found will be valuable to someone, and to the Resistance.” She shrugged. “And today, I suppose, they’ll help pay for more Resistance supplies. I hear there’s a long-range comm in town that isn’t too busted up.”

  “Now you’re speaking my language.”

  Vi had to take frequent breaks, and by lunch she was already tired. There was mysteriously an extra flatbread for her, as if Savi had known she was coming. Or perhaps he’d sent one along every day, knowing that one day she would be back. It didn’t matter. To have someone thinking about her, taking care of her—it was a nice feeling.

  That evening, she took the speeder into town, trundling slowly along behind the others. She didn’t have to wear a mask or a wig, and she relished the familiar scents of roasting meat and spiced, popped grains. People waved or nodded, and Vi returned their greetings and smiled, grateful that she no longer had to hide her identity. With her belted green wrap and Salju’s gifted necklace, she finally fit in among them, and it felt right.

  When she went up to order a round of drinks for her friends, Zade met her at the bar, leaning over in that way he had that made everything seem like a delicious secret.

  “Oga wants to see you,” he said. “N’arrghela wanted to wait and drag you out of the bathroom for old times’ sake, but I told her you deserved more respect than that.”

  “That’s a lie. I bet you offered to do the dragging yourself,” she shot back with her old grin.

  He shrugged innocently. “Who could say? I’m an enigma. Steely Carl is waiting for you in the hallway.”

  Vi cocked her head. “Who?”

  “The Talpini. I don’t know his actual name, so I just made one up. He doesn’t seem to mind it.” He polished a glass, or tried to. The bar rags were too old and greasy to do much good. “Not a bad guy, when you get used to the staring.”

  Vi paid him for a round and set off for her meeting with Oga. She found the Talpini squatting in the hall, chewing on what looked like a bone. He stared up at her.

  “I’m told Oga wants to see me.”

  He silently rose from his crouch and opened a nearly invisible door in the stone, and Vi walked in. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she realized that Oga’s cantina must’ve been carved using the same methods as the ancient ruins. Past the open areas, the feel was the same. Whoever the ancients had been, they’d been powerful, and there was still so much to learn about this place.

  “Chowbaso.” Oga gestured for her to come in, and she did.

  The Blutopian mob boss sat behind her desk, and other than the tooka-cat curled asleep by her elbow, they were alone. Rusko was dead, Oga’s other minions were notably absent, and the Talpini had already disappeared. It was just them, not that Vi believed for a second that Oga was without her own defenses.

  When Vi was close enough, Oga leaned back and crossed her arms. “I’ll never say it on record, but I’m pleased with you. I know well enough that the Kath man was thinking about acting against the outpost, and from what I hear, you ran him off.”

  Vi inclined her head. “The Resistance exists to protect the people.”

  “Don’t care about ‘the people,’ whoever that is. I care about my people, my businesses. And you protected them.” She reached into a bowl of clamfruit and noisily ate one before continuing in her guttural Huttese. “Not pleased that you killed Rusko, though.”

  “I didn’t kill him. He chose the wrong side and exploded.”

  Oga raised a shoulder as if Vi had scored a point. “See, that’s why I don’t like choosing sides. And I’m still not on yours.”

  “Oh?”

  Oga pointed with a clammy finger. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking you know my mind or that you have my ongoing friendship. Nobody has that. If the First Order people show up again with proper coin and manners and an officer who shows me deference, they’re welcome here until they cause trouble. Black Spire Outpost is the only thing I’m loyal to, and the best thing you’ll get from me is tolerance.”

  Vi grinned. “Tolerance, and free drinks?”

  Oga sneered and threw the clamfruit shell at her, which Vi nimbly avoided. “You and your folk are welcome in the cantina as long as you’re paying. Your mouthy one is a good bartender, and I don’t mind him listening in—which I know he’s doing—as long as he doesn’t give any more speeches. So you just don’t go making me mad or messing with my business matters, and I’ll let you be. I know there’s a bounty on your head, but that’s true for a lot of people who come here, and I don’t want it getting around that Oga Garra can’t be trusted. Just follow my rules.”

  Vi nodded. “I will.”

  “And tell your Chadra-Fan that there’s a job open at the Tech Bay, if she wants it. With Gol gone, she’s got the most knowledge. She’ll owe me my due, but otherwise the place is sitting open, and somebody needs to take care of it. Can’t have a bunch of junk gumming up the streets.”

  At that, Vi really did smile. “Kriki will be overjoyed.”

  For the briefest
moment, Oga’s button eyes twinkled. “And you’ll find a little something at your headquarters.”

  “A little something?”

  “Don’t echo at me. Annoying spy tricks! I reckon the only thing you’re missing is a long-range comm and satellite codes, and I just so happened to find such a comm.”

  Vi snorted. “Did you now?”

  Oga waved a rubbery hand. “Just sitting in the forest, all alone. It’s a bit bashed up, but I’m sure you and Kriki can fix it.”

  Vi crossed her arms and considered the Blutopian, and Oga returned her stare as she stroked the tooka-cat with a clamfruit-wet hand.

  “What’s the cost?” Vi asked.

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “I’ve spoken to enough people to know that Oga Garra never does anything without expecting payment. And the tallies are coming up uneven.”

  Oga threw back her head in a rasping laugh, causing the cat to squeak and skitter away. When she leaned forward again, there was no humor in her face, and she steepled her long, gray fingers. “I want you to owe me, Vi Moradi. I want you to know that I hold the key to everything you need to survive here, and that I can take it all away in an instant if you go against me. Upset the balance in my outpost, and the scales shift. I expect this Resistance of yours is going to need a lot of fuel.”

  “That it is.”

  “Well, then.”

  Vi inclined her head in a respectful nod. “Well bartered.”

  “And you.” Oga flapped a hand. “Now go away.”

  When she returned to camp, sure enough, there was a familiar cargo crate holding her long-range comm. Kriki soon had it up and running using the included codes, and Vi and her recruits gathered around it.

  “Magpie for General Organa,” Vi said, then rambled off a code.

  There was a long, crackling pause before Vi heard that familiar voice; this comm, like much of the Resistance’s gear, was too old to offer a visual.