by Chuck Wendig
It’s all coming together. Hux’s child-soldiers have proven themselves—yes, those troopers were unarmed, but the sheer speed with which the children dispatched trained soldiers was thrilling to behold. They did it eagerly, but without joy and without fear.
Further, he has Sloane in hand. The Observatory is protected and he can finally show her now what he has been doing—and how her failure to have faith in him has cost her a role in the grand finale to come.
It is time now to give his speech.
He thinks to not give a speech at all. Time is of the essence—the New Republic fleet will be here in a matter of hours. Maybe minutes. He and the others have to make their way back to the Observatory…
But no. The speech will be essential. He must fill the Empire with fire! It is his job to stir them, to enrage them, to prime the detonator before he throws it. Besides, this will be his final mark. It will be captured and saved. It will be broadcast for generations. This is a moment for history.
I am making history. Rax has to remember that. His footprint will be indelible, forever pressed into the mantle of the galaxy’s memory.
He meets with Tashu and Brendol. Both of them seem overly pleased with themselves. (Rax sees no reason right now to remind them that they owe it all to him. Let them bloat on the gas of their own satisfaction.) Together they move outside the base to meet with the rest of his council before his Empire gathers to hear him speak this last time.
Hodnar Borrum walks up, hands behind his back, chin up. He suddenly looks ten years younger, as if the prospect of war is the food that feeds him the same way water wakes a wilting flower. Borrum says as they walk, “We will win the ground battle handily, Counselor.”
Randd is in hologram form (for he is currently aboard the Star Destroyer Inflictor), beamed by a projector held in the hand of Yupe Tashu. The grand moff says as his projection bounces: “Their fleet will be larger than ours, but we have the Ravager. Theirs is still a ragtag force—strategically ill fed and cobbled together of incompatible ships and squadrons. We are unified. And in that unification we will win this battle.”
“Excellent,” Rax says as he strides boldly toward the stage. And he means it. It is excellent. All of it. Even the part where they are wrong.
The general asks: “Where is Obdur? We should be considering our messaging during all of this.”
“Ferric has taken sick,” Rax answers curtly. It’s not a lie. Not really. Being stabbed to death in your bed is quite sickening. That moment serves as another success of Hux’s program. A few of the children have proven particularly effective, it seems.
His “advisers” want to keep on nattering at him. But what they have to say matters little, after all, and only serves themselves.
It is time to speak.
Rax shushes the others with a hand and strides past them, up a set of metal steps, onto the dais. The stage is small, erected at the fore of the base and looking out over the tens of thousands of troopers gathered.
Above, the fleet hangs like specters. Around him and the troops are TIE fighters, bombers, troop carriers, shuttles, transports, walkers.
The engine of war has thrummed to life.
The Empire awaits his talk, though truly, right now, he has one audience of note: Behind him and above him, on the roof of the command headquarters, he knows that Sloane and her rebel scum cohort sit.
Rax steps out in front of the podium and speaks. His image is projected large behind him, a massive flickering holostatue. His voice is beamed loudly over all of them so it is less like a man speaking and more like a god whose divine command comes as a crashing, crushing wave.
The speech that he gives is one he has been rehearsing for months. It is designed as a mechanism—the best speeches are performances meant not to give information or to convey truth but rather, to leave an effect. It is vital not to make his people think, but only to force them to feel. He does not want to leave them with uncertainty. They need only answers.
The best speech is not a question mark. It is an exclamation.
His voice booms as he speaks:
Loyal soldiers of the Galactic Empire, madness is at our door. Ruffians and barbarians of the Rebel Alliance have claimed for themselves a government of no legitimacy, a government given over to corrosion, chaos, and the corruption born of alien minds and radical terroristic teachings. It was our own Emperor Palpatine who showed us the weakness that presents itself when a Republic becomes sick with the disease of craven politics and the illness of elite oligarchs who force their agendas upon us.
With the death of our beloved Emperor, our own Empire was cast into disorder. It gave strength to the illegitimate, and emboldened them with a fraudulent claim of bringing peace and justice to the galaxy—and yet, for so long, who have been the champions of peace? The only war visited upon the galaxy has been the one brought by the criminal Rebel Alliance.
Scattered and lost, we could have perished. After attacking Chandrila and injuring the fraudulent politicians who seek to steal the sanctity of our galaxy, I brought us here to Jakku, unifying our people and our powers in this faraway world—a hard world that has tested our mettle and forged us and sharpened us into a stronger blade. A blade with which we will slit the throats of the traitors that crawl on their bellies toward our door. Soon they come! Soon they try to finish what they started. They want to end the Empire. They want to set up as a tumor on a healthy body, leeching the blood while growing fatter like a parasite. They deny our legitimacy. They lie about the stability and sanity we created for the galaxy. For those are their truest weapons: deception and delusion. We must not give in. We must not believe that they are right. We must see them as they are:
Brutes and barbarians! They are subhuman. They are alien to us in the truest sense of the word and are deserving of no mercy from us. This is our zero hour, and I call you now to do your duty by the light of the glorious Galactic Empire. The battle to come is not a fight for Jakku or even a fight for the Empire. It is a fight for all the galaxy. If we fail here, we fail everywhere. We fail our loved ones. We fail our children. We fail all who crave constancy and light in these dark times.
We pursue no other aim than freedom from oppression, liberty from lies, emancipation from depravity.
Today is the day we fight back and reclaim our galaxy.
Today is the day the New Republic dies at the Empire’s hand.
Today we take our future!
(If only they knew what that future meant.)
And then it’s as if the galaxy is listening, as if the Force is truly on his side, for what occurs is an event of such theatrical synchronicity that Gallius Rax nearly drops to his knees and weeps like a baby—
The attack begins.
Thunder ripples as the New Republic fleet spears the sky, already launching a fusillade—and the Imperial fleet above fires its own in response. Far above their heads, turbolasers slash the sky. Torpedoes corkscrew. Javelins of heavy plasma fire slices open the blue.
Rax bellows one last entreaty:
The battle is upon us. Go! Go and drag them down to the ground and break their necks with your boots! Take their heads! End their tyranny!
And now he must go collect the others and board a ship before it’s too late. The Observatory beckons, and it is time for his egress.
—
No, no, no…
Sloane is on her knees. Her hands are bound. So are her ankles. Brentin has fallen over, letting himself topple to the side and curl in on himself. The two of them are up on the roof of the Empire’s command building, underneath the flap of a tent. They are alone. No one watches them. At first, Sloane thought, How strange, but now she sees: She has nowhere to go even if she could get free. As she and Brentin are forced to sit there and stomach Rax’s speech, she tries to understand what’s even happening here. Why let her witness this? What is she even meant to see?
The man’s speech is base and dull and full of the pompous rhetorical milk on which Gallius Rax is fed, and yet�
��it works, doesn’t it? Sloane feels it in her own belly. The trumpeting, triumphant roar of an Empire spurned. The fear of a New Republic ascendant. The certainty of being in the right and committing violence against those in the wrong…
And with that, a tiny mote of doubt plants inside her belly. The seed grows fast tendrils, and she wonders: Am I the product of confidently championed lies? Was this my Empire all along? Will it die here on Jakku?
As Rax’s rhetoric finishes, the sky opens up and—as if perfectly timed to the conclusion of his speech—the battle begins.
Capital ships rage in the planet’s orbit. Weapons fire drums like thunder. Specks appear in the sky and turn from translucent ghosts to buzzing black flies—starfighters spilling out of the New Republic ships. Already they enter atmosphere, scoring the ground with plasma.
And the Empire roars to meet it. TIE fighters lift off and in moments are launching forth like rocks from a slingshot. Soon the sky is chaos. Fighters erupt in flame. Laserfire rends the air. X-wings and TIE fighters dance in and around banded clouds while Imperial walkers turn to march out into the desert, ready to protect the base at any cost.
The battle in the skies has begun and soon, the ground war will rise.
The numbers of the New Republic fleet are superior. She can see that from here. Perhaps Rax stoked the proper ferocity in his troopers, and maybe, just maybe, his people can coordinate a proper pushback. Hodnar Borrum is one of the smartest ground war strategists, and the troops trust him. But if she’s correct, Randd is the man in charge of the skies—and though the grand moff is a capable leader, he does not have the courage or the inventiveness to win a fight of this magnitude.
Sloane wishes suddenly to be up there. That is her place: commanding those ships, ruling the heavens, destroying any who dare defile them. The Ravager casts a massive shadow, and she knows that whoever is in command of that ship is wrong for the job. It should be her. She could save the Empire with the Ravager. If she had a chance to get to it…
Such ego, she thinks. Perhaps the firepower of that SSD will afford them the chance to save the day. The Empire may win this battle.
But even if it does—at what cost?
And what else does Rax have up his sleeve?
What is the show? Who is the audience?
The stone trembles. Dust streams from the cavern ceiling, and scree streams from the smooth boreholes that populate Niima’s temple. Norra looks to Jas, worried. “Do I want to know?”
It’s Bones that answers. The droid tilts his skullish head toward the ceiling and he hms. “I AM INTIMATELY FAMILIAR WITH THE SOUND OF VIOLENCE AND THAT IS THE SOUND OF VIOLENCE.”
“War,” Jas says. “Now we’re really in the thick of it.”
Could it be that the New Republic has finally brought its fleet here? Norra isn’t sure what to think about that. She wondered if it was going to be like Kashyyyk—an Empire-controlled planet left to suffer due to the hesitant whims of a nervous voting body. “It’ll complicate things,” she says.
Jas shrugs. “At this point, I’m not sure it can get any more complicated, Norra.”
With that said, the two of them finish putting on their Imperial officer uniforms. Norra in noncom black, Jas in the standard gray. Norra’s outfit indicates her role as a prison administrator, whereas the bounty hunter’s bars serve to show her ranking as an army staff sergeant.
Bones asks: “DO I GET A UNIFORM?”
“I don’t think they have anything in your size,” Norra answers.
“Maybe if we collapse you down, you can be a mouse droid.”
Norra laughs. It feels good to laugh—even if it’s short-lived. Even that small moment of mirth makes her feel better. Like they can do anything. A little part of her thinks that they can pull this off. Yes, it’s dangerous. And completely foolish. Probably a suicide mission. And yet what choice do they have? She still wants Sloane, but Brentin is now the priority. It’s no longer a mission of vengeance but rather one of rescue.
Niima, to their great surprise, has chosen to help them. (Though, really, her aid is not driven by kindness, but rather revenge. Turns out, the Hutt overlord cares little for being perforated by blasterfire.) She’s furnished them with an (old-make) Imperial shuttle, a couple of (dusty, moth-nibbled) uniforms, and (hopefully solid) high-ranking codes.
“Are we ready?” Jas asks.
“I don’t know that there is such a thing as ready.”
“Hey,” Jas says, offering a steadying hand. The worry on Norra’s face must be broadcasting loud and clear. “We’re doing the right thing. We’re paying our debts. We’re finishing the job. There’s no greater honor.”
“Jas, I know you’ve given up a lot to be here. This isn’t what you do, and you put your life on hold to do it. I don’t think I’ve ever said thank you. You’ve taken up a cause that isn’t yours and—”
“Stop. It is my cause because I’ve made it my cause. My aunt was a bounty hunter and she used to help people. She’d abandon jobs to save some group of farmers or help free a bunch of Wookiees—and when I was young, I heard all those stories and I thought she was naïve. I said I’d never be like her. But here I am. And you know what I realized? She had it right. The job isn’t anything. The job is just a job. And those debts don’t mean as much as these debts—the ones between you and me, the ones between…” She seems almost flustered now, like she’s exposing too much of herself and can’t find the words. “The ones between regular people and the whole damn galaxy. Crewing with you has changed me, Norra Wexley. And I owe you for that.”
She offers a hand. Norra takes it. They pull each other into an embrace. Norra says over the bounty hunter’s shoulder: “This sounds suspiciously like one of those talks you give before you die.”
“I don’t know that we’re going to die, but we’re about to head into the dragon’s den and we’re doing it on a world now smashed between two warring forces. I think it’s best to assume we may not make it.”
“Good pep talk.”
“Could be worse. I could be Sinjir.”
“Gods, I miss him. And I miss my son.”
“I miss them, too. So let’s stop chatting and do the work.”
Together they leave this small grotto and head back toward where the shuttle awaits. As they get closer, Jas spins around suddenly, clamping a hand over Norra’s mouth and hissing for her to shush.
What the—?
Emari touches a finger to Norra’s ear. A sign to listen.
So she listens.
Voices. They float through the passageways—and instantly she recognizes one of them: Mercurial Swift.
Jas waves them forward, whispering for Bones to be quiet. The droid’s legs bend inward and he eases forth on the tips of his skeletal toes. Together they gather around the bend just before the passageway empties out into the smooth, sculpted cavern mouth where the shuttle is parked. And it’s there they see Swift.
He’s not alone. With him are three others: a broad-shouldered Kyuzo, a round-bellied human with a filthy head swaddling, and a tall Rodian with antennae so long they almost droop over her bulbous blue-black eyes.
They stand before Niima. The shuttle waits just beyond them.
Which means the path is blocked.
Mercurial is saying to Niima: “I know she’s here, Hutt. We saw our ship land. Point us to the Zabrak and we go in peace.”
“AND IF NOT?” the Hutt asks.
It’s the man in the head-swaddle who answers: He points a long-barreled rifle and growls, “Then you go in pieces.”
“IT IS UNWISE TO THREATEN A HUTT.”
“That’s Dengar,” Jas whispers in a hushed voice.
Mercurial leans in, his chin up and out. “And it’s unwise to disappoint me. I’m on Black Sun’s payroll, slug. I matter. You’re just some backwater worm with no power in the galaxy. It looks like somebody already shot you up good and I’m happy to finish the—”
Niima’s hand darts out, catching him by the throat. She lift
s him up high. His legs dangle as his cheeks bloom red, then purple.
“Grrk!” is the sound he makes.
“YOU INSIGNIFICANT SPECK OF INSECT WASTE—”
Dengar thrusts his rifle up into Niima’s face. The barrel presses hard against her nose-slits. “Careful, love. I don’t much like Swift, either, but I’m going to have to ask you to set him gently down. I’d hate to spray your head-slime all over the pretty rock, hm?”
Norra’s heart sinks. She hoped that Niima would be able to handle this. But the Hutt does as commanded—she drops Mercurial.
“I have a plan,” Jas whispers.
“I’m all ears.”
“I’ll distract them. You and Bones take the ship and go.”
“What? You must’ve given yourself a concussion when you broke those spikes off your head, Jas. I’m not leaving you behind.”
Jas eases Norra back and gets in close, nose-to-nose. “Listen, Norra. Those bounty hunters are skilled. If we leave them alive, they’ll alert the Empire that we’re coming and our cover will be blown.”
“Bones can handle them.”
The rattletrap B1 nods furiously at that.
“You’ll need him,” Jas says. “We can’t risk it. They want me. So they’ll get me. I’ll catch up later.”
“Jas, wait—”
But it’s too late. She goes back the way she came.
Damnit, Emari.
Next thing she knows, it’s happening. Jas yells from somewhere deeper in the passageways, and with that, the bounty hunters turn toward the noise—and true to the plan, they bolt in her direction. The sound of blasterfire fills the temple, echoing through the chambers.
Norra wants to wait and help. She wants to use Bones and take out the hunters. But Jas is right. She can’t risk it.
Brentin. Sloane. The Imperial base. That’s the goal. The stakes are huge and she can’t risk them on this.
Gritting her teeth, Norra tells Bones to hurry, and together they run for the shuttle.
At a distance, the tactics of combat are about the battlespace, or the arena one is given in which to fight. The battlespace above Jakku is nearly limitless—its moons orbit far enough away not to enter the fray, there exists no debris fields as yet, and the only object forming a boundary to the assault is the planet itself.