Tyrant's Test

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

  It was then that Mallar noticed another pilot standing by, a flight helmet tucked under one arm. Behind him a tech crew waited with an instrument sled. “Engine three gets close to the redline running up to rated thrust. Other than that, I didn’t notice anything.”

  “Any combat damage?”

  “Uh—we were hit by an Interdictor, and then we took a heavy ion salvo, maybe two, I don’t really know. Everything went out for almost five minutes.”

  “Any operational gremlins or glitches afterward?”

  “No, all the systems seemed to come back all right once the integrator was stabilized. It should all be in the flight logs.”

  “Very well,” said the major. “Second Lieutenant Plat Mallar, I formally accept delivery of recon-X KE-four-oh-four-oh-nine, pending technical inspection, and release you from your responsibility for this vessel. Sergeant, escort this pilot to DD-eighteen and remain with him until the debriefing officer arrives.”

  “Can I recharge my purifiers first?” Mallar asked, tapping the rectangular casing on his chest.

  The major frowned. “I don’t know what that’s about, son. I just know if I were you, I wouldn’t be asking even for small favors right now.”

  Chewbacca and Lumpawarrump stood together at the boundary of the Well of the Dead, where the Rryatt Trail turned away toward Kkkellerr.

  [It is time,] Chewbacca said. [Tell me what you have learned. Tell me the things you must know to hunt the katarn.]

  Lumpawarrump looked nervously at the green thicket. [Never show him your back, for the katarn will stalk you. Never flee, for the katarn will overtake you. Never hasten your hunt, for the katarn will vanish before your eyes.]

  [Then how are you to conquer your adversary?]

  [You must be patient, and you must be brave,] Lumpawarrump said, sounding not at all brave. [The katarn will allow you to follow it until it has taken your measure, and then it will turn and charge.]

  [And then?]

  [And then you must stand your ground until the katarn’s breath is in your face and the scent of its glands is in your nostrils. Your hand must be steady, and you must take it in the center of the chest with your first shot, because your second will find only empty air.]

  [You have listened well, and remembered everything I have told you. Now we will see how much of it you have truly learned.]

  Lumpawarrump unslung the bowcaster from his shoulder and rubbed the newly polished metal of the stock with his paw. [I will try to make you proud.]

  [There is one more thing you must remember: Mind the light. Do not let night find you in the Well of the Dead. The katarn still owns the shadows and the darkness, and even the Wookiee must respect that.]

  [How many katarn have you hunted, Father?]

  [I have pursued the old prince five times,] Chewbacca said. [Once he escaped me. Three times he fell. And once he gave me this warning that I had been inattentive.] Taking his son by the wrist, Chewbacca made him touch the long double scar ridge hidden by the thick fur on the left side of Chewbacca’s chest. [Be attentive, my son.]

  Lumpawarrump stared for a moment, then pulled his hand back and began to load the bowcaster. Chewbacca stopped him.

  [Why? Am I to go in unarmed?]

  [Wait until the moment. If you hunt katarn with your weapon drawn and ready, you will find it too easy to fire the quick shot, the long shot, the startled shot. And then you have given over the advantage. You will never see the old prince that takes you.]

  Those words shattered the last of Lumpawarrump’s pretense. [Father—I am afraid.]

  [Be afraid. But go forward, all the same.]

  Lumpawarrump stared, then slowly shouldered the weapon. [Yes, Father.] Turning, his paws found a seam in the green growth and parted it noiselessly. After a moment’s hesitation, Lumpawarrump eased himself lightly through the opening and vanished from sight.

  Chewbacca waited on the trail for a count of two hundred, then followed his son into the Well of the Dead.

  The man who entered compartment DD18 wore a dark green uniform with markings wholly unlike those of Venture’s crew or the troops aboard her.

  “My name is Colonel Trenn Gant, New Republic Intelligence,” he said as Plat Mallar jumped to his feet. “Sit.”

  Mallar complied. “You must be here to ask me about the attack on the commodore’s shuttle.”

  “No,” said Gant. “Actually, we have a pretty good idea of what happened there.” The colonel circled the table and Mallar once before sitting down and placing an interview recorder between them. “When did you first learn the nature of the mission?”

  “The nature of the mission? You mean the ferry duty, or that we would be escorting Tampion?” When Gant showed no sign that he was going to answer, Mallar went on. “I was called to the training commander’s office at oh-nine-fifty the day before yesterday, and I was told I had been assigned to a recon-X ferry flight.”

  “And that was the first you knew of that assignment?”

  “Yes—well, no. Admiral Ackbar told me the day before, when we were at the simulator, that there was a chance they might need pilots for a ferry mission. But I didn’t know anything else until Captain Logirth called me in. I got the details at the mission briefing, the same as everyone else.”

  “What details were those?”

  “It was a mission briefing,” Mallar said, puzzled that Gant would need an explanation. “Ship assignments—the jump vector—the formation we’d be using—the mission schedule—the lift order—the fact that we would be escorting Tampion, and that some of us would be returning in the shuttle.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Well—there were some technical details on comm configuration and so forth, yes.”

  “When did you learn that Commodore Solo would be aboard the shuttle?”

  “Not until we were in our ships, ready to lift. Lieutenant Bos recognized the commodore as he was boarding. Before that, all we were told was that the shuttle would be carrying command staff.”

  Gant nodded. “How much time elapsed between the mission briefing and the cockpit call?”

  “Four hours.”

  “I need for you to account for your whereabouts during that four hours. Don’t leave anything out.”

  “I went right to the simulators and spent two hours doing lifts and formation work. On the way back to the lockers, I stopped for about ten minutes at the Memory Wall, looking at names. I took a five-minute scrubdown, then I crawled into a sleep tube and spent the rest of the time trying to—sleep, that is.”

  “Who’d you talk to?”

  “I hardly talked to anyone. Lieutenant Frekka, my simulator controller. I said a few words to Rags—Lieutenant Ragsall, who flew as Ferry Seven in our group—in pilot country.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I asked him how many of us he thought the Fifth would keep,” said Mallar.

  “And what did he say to that?”

  “He said that in combat, you don’t usually lose the mount and get the rider back—that the chances were that with a new fleet they’d need almost as many pilots as they needed fighters.”

  “Who else did you talk to?”

  Mallar shook his head. “The crew chief for my recon-X, the flight leader—that’s all I can remember. Major, I was nervous, and when I’m nervous, I don’t start a lot of conversations.”

  “What were you nervous about?”

  “About making a mistake. About making people regret giving me a chance.”

  “Did you talk to anyone off the base?”

  “I never left the base.”

  “What about your comlink?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure? Shall we look at the comm log?”

  “I didn’t talk to anyone—wait, I tried to call Admiral Ackbar. But he wasn’t available.”

  “Admiral Ackbar again,” Gant said. “Do you have a special relationship of some kind with him?”

  “He was my primary flight instructor. And he’s my frie
nd.”

  “You managed to make friends in high places pretty quickly, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to say. When I woke up in the hospital, Admiral Ackbar was there. Our friendship’s been at his initiative—I wouldn’t have known who he was to seek him out. I didn’t know who he was until much later.”

  “If it’s at his initiative, why did you call him?”

  “Because I’d just gotten good news, and I didn’t have anyone else to share it with who’d understand.” Mallar leaned forward, spreading his hands flat on the tabletop. “Look, Major—I know we screwed up, and I know I’m going to be sent back. But every one of us would rather have died than show up here without the commodore.”

  “Really,” said Gant. “My information is that not a single member of your squadron fired a shot.”

  “We couldn’t,” Mallar said, coming to his feet with enough angry threat in his posture to bring the guard a step forward. “It was just like Polneye all over again. They were waiting for us. We were out of it before we knew what was happening. I was hit at least three times in the first five seconds, and I don’t think I got the worst of it. But I was pumping my triggers right up to the moment when the last Yevethan ship jumped out—hoping for a green light and a miracle.”

  Gant’s hand shot out and caught Mallar’s right wrist, forcing him to turn that hand upward. The movement revealed purple-black bruises across the palm pad and a bloody, scabrous blister covering the last third of the thumb.

  Cocking an eyebrow as he released his grip, Major Gant sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Yes. They were waiting for you—at an intercept point ninety-one light-years outside Koornacht Cluster. They didn’t just take a wild shot in the dark. They knew exactly who and what they were aiming at. And that’s my problem, pilot. That’s my problem with this whole affair.”

  Mallar relaxed into his chair. “I don’t know how the Yevetha found out enough to be there waiting for us. If I had any ideas, I’d have told you when you walked in here, instead of making you sift through the sand. The only thing I know is, it had to come from someone who knew about it before I did—before the pilots did. Tell me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think an Interdictor could cross ninety-one light-years in four hours—not on its best day.”

  “You are correct,” Gant said, reaching out and collecting the recorder. Then he slid Mallar’s ID disc across the table to him. “Sergeant, take Second Lieutenant Mallar to pilot country and show him how to find the ’fresher and berth forty-D. Mallar, you’re restricted to pilot country, comm privileges suspended, until someone cuts new orders for you.”

  “Yes, sir.” Mallar slipped the disc into its pocket as he stood. “Thank you, sir.”

  “I’ve done you no favors, Mallar. I’m looking for a traitor. I haven’t found him yet.”

  “Yes, sir,” Mallar said, nodding and letting the soldier lead the way toward the hatch.

  Gant stood and turned as Mallar passed him. “One other thing.”

  Mallar stopped short, his heart suddenly pounding. “What, Major?”

  “Why do you think the Yevetha left you and the others alive?”

  “Sir—at first I thought it was so we could carry the message back, as witnesses.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I think they did it to humiliate us.”

  “Explain.”

  “Major, if we’d died out there, or been taken hostage, that would have made us important, too. What they did told us that we aren’t even important enough to kill. It’s like they understood just how to make us feel small. Futility, Major—that’s the message they wanted us to bring back. They showed us they can go where they want to and do what they want to, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  “Don’t you believe that for a minute, son,” Major Gant said firmly. “This isn’t over—it’s just beginning. We’re not going to roll over and surrender to this kind of blackmail. We’ll get in our whacks.”

  “Then I hope someone will get in a few for me,” Mallar said, tight-lipped. “Because I think I missed my only chance.”

  Half a dozen wroshyr leaves moved where there was no breath of air to move them, lifting the width of a hand and then falling again. The movement betrayed Lumpawarrump’s position some forty meters east of Chewbacca.

  His son was not stalking anything. He was not even moving through the Well of the Dead in search of his prey. To Chewbacca’s dismay and disappointment, Lumpawarrump had gone perhaps a hundred timid paces into the thicket, then found himself a hiding place, his back against a wroshyr stump and his body concealed by the heavy, hanging young shoots he gathered around him.

  At intervals, Lumpawarrump would peer out from his improvised blind and scan the forest for a few moments as though expecting a katarn to saunter past in full view. Then, seeing nothing, he would retreat back into the false security of his wishful invisibility.

  But Chewbacca had had no trouble spotting his son, and neither would any of the Well’s predators. And the stump Lumpawarrump was depending on for protection created an enormous blind spot from which a katarn could approach and strike without warning.

  Chewbacca knew that his son was in far more danger than he realized, and yet Chewbacca was honor-bound not to intervene except to stop a killing blow. All he could do was watch and wait, his bowcaster at the ready, trying not to become so distracted that he made himself a ready target.

  To help keep himself alert, Chewbacca kept himself moving. He moved in an irregular arc that had Lumpawarrump’s hiding place as its anchor—never drawing too close, never wandering too far away, and never compromising the shot he was constantly visualizing.

  Four times Chewbacca saw the wroshyr leaves move, and four times he froze.

  Lumpawarrump never saw him.

  Chewbacca could tell himself that, even caught in the open, motionless, face averted, a long-furred Wookiee could be taken for another of the stalks and mounds of parasitic jaddyyk moss that dotted the floor of the Well. But even a novice hunter using the simplest blink technique should have noticed that one of the jaddyyk stalks kept changing position. It was a sign of just how terrified Lumpawarrump was, cowering behind his green curtain—which was in turn another hard disappointment for his father.

  But although Lumpawarrump had taken no notice, before long Chewbacca knew that something else had. It moved only when Chewbacca moved, and yet somehow managed to draw ever closer. It stayed low in the thick overgrowth and melted into the shadows. When Chewbacca turned to face it, he saw nothing. When he moved toward it, he soon sensed it behind him once more.

  With the air in the Well heavy and still, Chewbacca could catch no scent of what was stalking him until it had drawn uncomfortably close. He sniffed the air sharply and breathed a quiet growl. Eight meters away, another Wookiee rose silently from the wroshyr leaves. It was Freyrr, one of Chewbacca’s many second cousins, and the lightest-footed stalker in the family.

  After a silent exchange scripted in glances and toothy grimaces, Chewbacca and Freyrr came together back-to-back and lowered themselves into the foliage. There the conversation continued in growls so quiet that they could be taken for the groaning of branches.

  [Where is Lumpawarrump?] asked Freyrr.

  [Gone to cover,] Chewbacca said, tipping his head toward his son’s hiding place. [Why are you here? Why do you intrude on my son’s hrrtayyk?]

  [Mallatobuck sent me to find you. There is news that could not wait on your return.]

  [What news?]

  [It would be better if you left the Well first.]

  [My son cannot leave until his test is over.]

  [I will stay with him, cousin. Shoran waits for you on the Rryatt Trail, and will tell you all as you return to Rwookrrorro.]

  Chewbacca’s body went rigid with barely contained fury. [You think to take this duty from me? How can you breathe such shame? Even when the mate of Jiprirr was burned by flame beetles and fell from the Gathering Trail, even when
the mate of Grayyshk was confined with yellow-blood malaise and died, they were not recalled from the hrrtayyk.]

  Freyrr reached back and took a restraining grip on both of Chewbacca’s hands. [Mind your voice, cousin.]

  The answering growl Chewbacca offered under his breath was all the more menacing for the ease with which he broke Freyrr’s grip. [If I do not hear in the next moment what brings you to me, every webweaver, gundark, and katarn within three levels of the Well will hear my voice in the moment after that. Now, what is wrong? Is it Mallatobuck?]

  Freyrr sighed his surrender. [No—it is the one to whom you owe your life debt. Han Solo has been taken by the enemies of Princess Leia. He is a prisoner of the Yevetha, somewhere in Koornacht Cluster. The Princess has asked you to come back to Coruscant.]

  Only a mouthful of his own forearm kept Chewbacca’s howl of distress from escaping his lips.

  [You understand now,] Freyrr went on. [You have a duty that goes beyond your duty here. Go. Shoran awaits. He will tell you the rest. I will watch over your son and see him through to the end of his tests. Mallatobuck will see that he understands.]

  The decision that loomed before Chewbacca was distasteful, but it was not difficult.

  [The hrrtayyk can wait until I return,] Chewbacca said, rising to his feet and abandoning his concealment.

  Freyrr rose with him. [Chewbacca, I beg you—if your son returns to Rwookrrorro without being able to announce his new name, without being able to wear the baldric Malla has made for him—]

  [Better that than for him to return over your shoulder, cousin.]

  Freyrr showed a mouthful of teeth. [Do you question my rrakktorr?]

  [No, cousin. I question his.] Chewbacca called across the Well to Lumpawarrump in a stentorian growl that startled a gathering of scur and rousted a fat-bodied charkarr to flight. Farther away, Chewbacca saw the shiver of leaves that marked a katarn turning away from a hunt.

  When Lumpawarrump was slow to appear, Chewbacca repeated the call. [Come to me, first-child. You will sleep this night in the home tree. My honor brother is in peril, and I must go to him.]