by Chuck Wendig
Tashu offers a beatific, self-assured smile. “What I mean to say is that Palpatine was a smart man. Smarter than the combination of all of us here. We must emulate his path. The Emperor knew the dark side was his savior, and so we too must make the dark side ours.”
“Hnnh,” Shale grumps. “And how do we do that? I don’t think any of us are trained in the ways of the Force.”
“No Sith remain,” Tashu says. “And the lone Jedi that exists—the son of Anakin Skywalker—possesses an untouchable soul. At least for now. We must instead move toward the dark side. Palpatine felt that the universe beyond the edges of our maps was where his power came from. Over the many years he, with our aid, sent men and women beyond known space. They built labs and communication stations on distant moons, asteroids, out there in the wilds. We must follow them. Retreat from the galaxy. Go out beyond the veil of stars. We must seek the source of the dark side like a man looking for a wellspring of water.”
Crassus twists up his pudgy, jowly face so much it looks like a wrung rag. “You’re saying we…leave? We pack up our ships and run away? Like fearful little children afraid of Daddy’s belt?”
“Not fearful,” Tashu says. “Hopeful.”
And from there, a brand-new fusillade of arguments rise up—this time from each corner, all at the same time. A cacophony of the same arguments. Truce. Money. Surrender. Cold war. Hot war.
All of it, nonsense. None of them agree. Sloane wonders if ever they will. Which means this summit was a foolish endeavor.
But we still have to try.
The Galactic Empire is a broken mirror. Many reflections of itself, shattered and separate. Sloane tells herself: It’s up to me to repair the glass. To fix the reflection. She believes in the Empire. And she believes that she is the one who can and must fix it. An ascendant Empire will again rule the galaxy. And her place in it will be cemented—no longer kept to the margins, no longer left off the ledger. Sloane will matter.
She stands up. “Please continue. I’ll be back.”
They don’t even notice that she leaves. She’s not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
—
In the space above Akiva, a viper probe droid decelerates with cautious bursts from its retrothrusters. When finally it stabilizes, its five spiderlike limbs extend outward. Its eye glows. A series of small antennas emerge from the top of its domed head, all meant to take measurements.
It begins its scans.
—
A hard hand cups under his chin. Moves his head up, back, left, right. The flat of this intrusive hand slaps his cheek. Not hard. Just: pat, pat, pat.
Wedge inhales sharply. His eyes open.
It’s her. The one who caught him at the communications station. The one who put a blaster round in his back.
“What now?” he says. “Come to torture me yourself?”
The other one, the one with the pale face and the dark wrinkles—skin marked with bold striations, as if he were half dead—isn’t here, but he appears now and again. Maybe once an hour, though it’s hard to say because time is slippery. It’s always just as Wedge starts to sleep again. And this strange man, he hurts Wedge whenever he shows. He cut into Wedge’s side with a knife—no deep slashes, always shallow cuts. He thrust a spark-prod against the inside of Wedge’s thigh, and when he did, everything inside Wedge lit up like a malfunctioning console. One time he just came in and noisily ate fruit. At no time has he said anything. Then he just licked his fingers. The other times he just chuckled quietly as he delivered pain.
But this one. This woman. An admiral, isn’t she?
“No,” she says. “I’m not a torturer.”
“No,” he wheezes. “Of course not. You’re the questioner.”
“I thought so. But I’m not sure.” Nearby, the medical droid checks the tube that winds around his arm and plunges into the skin. “You wouldn’t answer me anyway, would you?”
“No,” Wedge says. He tries to put some carbon steel in his voice. He tries not to let his fear creep into that word. If she senses fear, she’ll pounce. Tear into him like a wampa scenting blood on the snow. But he is scared. He came all this way, through countless battles in space, over snow, across desert and swamp and open sky, and now at the end of it he’s here. Wounded and strapped upright to a table. Tortured to death.
“It wouldn’t matter anyway. I ask you about vital New Republic details—ship movements, base locations, attack plans—what could I do with it? Not much, I’m afraid.”
“Ready to surrender yet?” he says, giving her a smile. It’s not a kind smile. It’s cruel. He means for it to hurt. I’m laughing at you, he thinks.
“Let me ask you this. Why?”
“Why…what?”
“Why be a rebel? Why join?”
“To destroy the Empire.”
She shakes her head. “No. Too easy. That’s just the paint. Scratch off the color, there’s something personal underneath it.”
He again shows her his teeth—bared in a terrible smile. “Of course there is, Admiral. The Empire hurt people close to me. Family. Friends. A girl I loved, once. And I’m not alone. All of us in the New Republic, we all have stories like that.” He coughs. His eyes water. “We’re the harvest of all the horrible seeds you planted.”
“But we kept order in a lawless galaxy.”
“And you did it with a closed fist instead of an open hand.”
“You have a way with words for just a pilot.”
He tries to shrug but even that hurts. A grunt comes from the back of his throat and he bites back any further cry.
The woman nods, and then turns and leaves without another word.
—
Ensign Deltura’s head hovers above the table. A blue glow surrounding the hologram. Ackbar leans forward at the table. “You’re quite certain, Ensign?”
“No sign of Imperial ships, Admiral.”
“But you did find signs of our own.”
“Just debris. Nothing you’d find with the human eye, but the viper is a surprisingly effective probe droid. It found molecular remnants indicative of our own ships, yes, sir.”
“The A-wings.” Ackbar hmms. “Something shot them down.”
“Something from the surface, sir?”
“Unlikely. Couldn’t hit an A-wing from that distance.” Ackbar’s long, webbed fingers mesh together. They rub against one another. He turns his chair to the other person in the room—
This person, also a hologram.
And this hologram is only barely a person.
The image stands there, off to the side. Like a ghost. The body and face shifting and distorting. Shadowy and unclear. This is their inside man: an informant known only as the Operator. So far, his intel has been trustworthy. Impeccably so. Which makes Ackbar all the more dubious.
“What say you, Operator?”
The voice that emerges is as distorted as the visual: a mechanized, warped sound. “Does the droid detect any traffic in and out of the capital city? Or around the planet at all?”
To Deltura, Ackbar says: “You heard the question.”
“No, sir. No ships at all.”
The Operator says: “Have the droid ping all the comm relays planetside. See what happens.”
Deltura nods, says something to someone outside holorange. Likely his science officer: a young Togruta woman. Moments of uncomfortable silence spread out like something noxious spilling across the floor. Ackbar likes none of this. A septic feeling sits inside him, sucking up all the optimism he had possessed.
The ensign’s glowing holographic head returns.
“Nothing,” he says, almost shocked. “Ah, nothing, sir. The probe droid cannot ping any of the relays. It’s like they’re dead.”
“Communications blackout,” the Operator says. “An Imperial trick. They are there, Admiral Ackbar. Their ships must be in hiding. But if no traffic is coming in and out, they have instituted a blockade. No ships. No communications. Something is happening. I do no
t know what.”
“Thank you,” Ackbar says.
“You will act on this?” the Operator asks. Eager. Too eager?
Ackbar doesn’t answer. He turns off the hologram. Deltura asks: “Is there anything you want me to do, sir?”
“Hold position,” Ackbar says. “I need time to think and confer with the others. Thank you, Ensign.”
“Admiral, sir.”
The man’s face disappears.
Worry gnaws at Ackbar like a school of brine-maggots. He needs time to think, but too much time and they could miss a vital opportunity. Or, he thinks, escape the jaws of yet another Imperial trap. Is this a ruse, or is this the real thing? Could be a secret meeting. There, an irony too bold to ignore: Once it was the rebels who had to sneak around and hide their presence. Now it’s the Empire. The roles are reversing. A sign of their nascent victory over Imperial oppression, perhaps. But he worries, too, about their overconfidence. The Empire isn’t gone. Not yet.
It’s waiting to strike again. Of that, he’s quite sure.
A purple fruit comes from off camera and crashes into the side of Olia Choko’s face. The fruit pops. Juice runs down her cheek and drips from her jawline. She looks stunned.
From off screen, an angry voice:
“Boo! Boo to the Galactic Senate! Boo to the New Republic!”
Another fruit flies—this one misses its mark, sailing over Olia’s head.
Tracene starts to say: “Okay, Lug, time to cut—”
“No,” Olia says, interrupting. She swallows hard and wipes some of the goopy fruit innards from her cheek. “You. The protester. Come closer.”
Tracene gives Lug a barely perceptible nod.
A pair of scaly Trandoshan hands appear at the edges of the screen and pivot the hovering camera toward a small Xan man in a dirty gray jumpsuit. He has a small basket of fruits and vegetables, mostly rotten.
He is alone.
He sees the camera is pointed at him and he waves his hands. “No, no, I do not want to be on camera. Please.”
Olia approaches. Gingerly. Hands out, beseeching. “If you have concerns, then I’d like to hear them.”
“I…,” the Xan stammers, looking around. As if this is some kind of joke. Or as if he wasn’t prepared to have this effect. “I am sorry, I should go.” He starts to pull away, but Tracene steps in front of him.
“You can have your say.”
Suspicious, he says: “Really?”
Olia answers: “Really. Tell me your troubles.”
To the camera Tracene mouths: Are we still on?
A reptilian thumbs-up appears for a moment on screen.
“I…,” the alien begins. “I am Geeska Dotalo. I’m from Gan Moradir. Colony in the Mid Rim. The New Republic came. They…they destroyed an Imperial base. Now the Imperials are gone. The Empire was cruel. But at least there was order! We had food and water. Things worked. Now the rebels have gone. And the gangs have come. The pirates. We don’t have enough food. The destruction affected our wells and…” He begins to sob. “We saved up enough credits to bring me here. I am all we have.”
For a moment, Olia seems struck dumb.
Tracene looks like she’s about to intervene, but then Olia speaks:
“It’s good you came, Mister Dotalo. I don’t believe Gan Moradir has a representative yet in the Senate. Today, you’ll be that representative.”
His eyes go wider than seems possible.
“Wh…what?”
“War is terrible. And an army isn’t enough to fix problems. We need a solution for what happens after they do their job, and that’s why the Senate is beginning again—and why we’re doing it here, on the chancellor’s homeworld. Some think of this place as a small, inconsequential world—but Chandrila has always been an origin point for big ideas and the citizens to carry them to the larger galaxy beyond. The galaxy needs help. It needs those big ideas but like you say, it needs the smaller things, too: food, water, shelter. Basic things. And after war is over, there has to be something else to fix what’s broken. I invite you today to speak to the Senate about your people and your colony. Let them listen. Let us help you.”
She summons someone from off camera. Another Pantoran—a man in blue administrative robes. Olia whispers to him. She makes a small introduction between him and Geeska Dotalo. Then the Pantoran man gently urges him away.
Tracene smiles and calls “cut.” But her eyes flit to the distance.
Because there’s a commotion now. People are looking up and away. Tracene motions with her hand and Lug spins the camera.
Over in the distance, a line of Imperial prisoners. Cuffed together, shepherded along by a New Republic officer.
“This is unacceptable,” Olia hisses, then darts off to intervene.
Bad dreams.
It’s one of the classics, one of the dreams that replays inside Norra’s head now and again—it’s her and her Y-wing and her astromech, R5-G4, and they’re in the twisting bowels of the Death Star again. She breaks off from the main conduit, drawing a handful of TIEs after her like flies on a gorth’s tail. She can’t swat them, can’t bat them away, can’t outfly them. And suddenly there are more ahead of her, and the inside of the battle station is a maze looping back on itself, and from somewhere she feels the concussive shock of the power source going up, and then everything starts to fall apart around her, and the fire fills the space behind her, and then it’s there at the front, too, rushing up to greet her—
She wakes up bathed in sweat. Like she always does, no matter how warm or cold the air. Norra checks her watch. She has, of course, been asleep for less than an hour. After rescuing her son from the clutches of that vile gangster, she’s still got the feeling—like they’re being chased. Heart pounding, muscles tight, jaw set, adrenaline cooking through her like liquid blaster fire. Sleep was a bad idea.
Norra heads downstairs to get some tea. She expects that everyone is still asleep—and here she reminds herself to thank her sister, Esmelle, for letting this crew of curious strangers stay the night—but as she descends, she hears voices coming from the kitchen.
There, gathered around a small table, are the two curious strangers: Jas Emari and Sinjir Rath Velus. They’ve set aside Esmelle’s hydrodome (where she grows small herbs, like heartweed and sinthan seed) and have set out across the small table a series of odd objects: a saltcellar, a series of herb vials, a napkin dispenser, a bunch of quicksticks and fruit knives.
She enters, and the two of them straighten up.
Like children who have done wrong.
Hm.
“What’s all this?” Norra asks.
“Nothing,” Jas says.
“Just…playing a game,” the other one, Sinjir, says with a smile. A strange couple, these two. She, a cold-faced, curt-tongued Zabrak. He’s a tall drink of milk: a bit rangy, scruffy, the smell of wine or brandy leaving his pores. He’s got a big, duplicitous grin. She’s got eyes like cut stones.
Norra mumbles something and then taps the button on the side of the kettle. From the upper cabinet she selects a gesha tea, measures some into a cup. The other two are staring holes in her back.
The kettle whistles, and she pours. Ghosts of steam rise around her.
Then she turns and says, “That looks like a map.”
“It’s not,” Sinjir says, still smiling.
“It is,” the Zabrak says at almost the same time.
“Will you tell me what it is?” Norra asks.
“No,” the other two both answer in unison. Jas and Sinjir give each other a look. A bit quizzical, a bit amused, that shared look.
Norra leans over. Scrutinizes their arrangement. “This, the napkin dispenser. It’s bigger than everything else. So it’s meant to represent something big. The satrap’s palace, I’m guessing. Which lines up with the rest—here’s the old capitol building, here’s the Avenue of the Satrapy, here’s the narrow Withrafisp Road—this was once a secret road, I’m told, to sneak satraps in and out of the palac
e, but it’s been public since I was a girl.”
“Nope,” Sinjir says, feigning total sincerity. “Sorry. Thank you, though, for playing. Now, if you’ll excuse us—”
“Shut up,” Jas says to him. Then to Norra: “Yes. You’re right. Did you grow up here?”
Norra nods. “I did.”
“You’re…” Jas gives her a look-over. “A rebel?”
“Am I that obvious?”
The Zabrak shrugs. “No. But I’m no fool. You had no problem shooting at stormtroopers last night. And yet you don’t look like another criminal. Or just another local. You…dress like a rebel. The utilitarian vest. The utility belt. Those boots.” She squints. “Pilot?”
Norra laughs. “Yes, that’s correct.”
“I’m a bounty hunter,” Jas says. “I’m here collecting a bounty for the New Republic. I think I could use your help.”
“Wait one star-burned second,” Sinjir protests, waving both hands. “You’re cutting me in for a meager twenty-five percent, and now you’re going to water down the bounty even more by bringing her in?”
The bounty hunter says, “I’m hoping she’ll do it because it’s the right thing and because it is an attack on the Empire. Not because of credits.”
Norra feels the call of duty crawling over her like ants. She wants to find out more, wants to throw in and spit in the eye of the Empire, but—
“I can’t,” she says, speaking through clenched jaw. “I really can’t. My son and I have to leave this planet. My first priority is taking him away—”
“Go save your friend,” Temmin says. “Antilles. Because I told you, I’m not going.” Temmin shuffles into the kitchen. “And by the way, I know you people think you’re not being loud, but you’re totally being loud.”
Norra catches his arm. “I’ll let someone else…save Captain Antilles. My job isn’t fighting this war anymore. My job is you.”
But he pulls away from her. He grabs a glass of blue milk from the cold-chest. “Did my droid come home yet? He should be here by now.”