by Chuck Wendig
But alive, he remains.
It’s hot as a rancor’s mouth here. Jom pries off his mask, flings it to the ground. He tries to move—but his one arm gives out, and pain fires from the wrist to the shoulder like an arc-whip of electricity. He can’t even close his fist. The limb feels useless inside the casing of carbon lace.
It’s broken.
Frag.
He reaches around for the rifle strapped to his back with plans to use it as a cane—
But it’s gone.
Double frag.
Must’ve broken off in the fall (or the landing). He rolls over, starts to push himself up onto his knees with his unbroken arm and—
When he lifts his head, sweat pouring off his brow, he sees the white boots of stormtroopers standing there. Three of them. Blasters pointed.
And that’s a triple frag for the frag trifecta.
“Well, hey, boys,” Jom says, words ushered out through gritted teeth. “Hot enough for you?”
“Freeze,” one stormtrooper says.
“Stand up,” the other says.
Idiots.
“I can’t likely do both,” Barell says. “I’m just one man, not three like you fine soldiers—” And on that last word he pivots and kicks a leg out hard, stabbing his heel at the post holding up the wooden overhang. It’s enough—the post cracks like a snapped bone, and the whole roof comes down. Clay tile clatters off and rains down upon the stormtroopers as the wooden platform separates him from them.
No time to waste. He springs up with both legs, urging himself past the pain and slamming his shoulder into the roof, shoving it forward. The stormtroopers give way, toppling to the ground with the rattle of armor. They’re trapped underneath it. He crawls on top and slams his weight down a few times—but he sees movement at the edge. One of them is trying to crawl out from under. Blaster rifle in one hand.
Jom rolls over, pries the blaster from the stormtrooper’s hand.
“Hey!” the trooper shouts.
“Hey,” Barell seethes, standing up—using the blaster for support.
Then he fires the rifle down through the wood, peppering it with searing bolts. Splinters spray. Smoke drifts through the holes. The stormtroopers stop struggling and lie still.
He winces, spits, and then steps off the platform.
Time to move.
They walk. Hard to keep your face hidden here on the streets of Myrra, especially in hot weather—a cloak is out of the question and a face mask will drown you in your own sweat. Veils are the way they go: Norra with a white veil over her nose and mouth, Jas with a full head veil, black as midnight. (Though the veil does little to conceal her head-spikes.)
Ahead, a pair of stormtroopers walk toward them.
From somewhere behind, a flung jogan fruit. It hits the one trooper and splatters—purple juice and pale seeds running down the white helmet in gooey rivulets. The two troopers wheel, blaster rifles up.
“Who did that? Who?”
“Show yourself!”
But nobody does. The pair of Imperials curse and keep walking.
Jas and Norra cinch their veils closer to their faces and skirt past the two stormtroopers on the far side of the crowded street. They make it.
Norra feels so tense she’s afraid her teeth might break against one another. She tries to relax, tries to unclench. But everything feels like it hinges on everything else—one wrong move and the entire thing comes tumbling down around them.
“Your plan really might work,” Jas says.
“You think?” Norra asks. “I’m suddenly not so sure.”
Jas shrugs. “After seeing what we just saw? I feel considerably better about it. Here. Ahead. Your son’s shop.”
Temmin’s shop. Norra thinks but does not say: Once, my home.
From inside, the sounds of banging. Metal striking against stone. A power drill revs up somewhere past the door. Norra can feel the vibrations of the drill in the heels of her feet up through her calves.
“You sure you don’t want me to come in with you?” Norra asks.
Jas pops the knuckles on each hand with a pressing thumb. “Too crowded in there. You’ll only get in my way.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“You be the pilot. I’ll be the bounty hunter.”
“Fair enough. I’ll get my gun fixed, then I’ll meet you at the evil-eye.”
Jas nods, then steps forward, blaster drawn. Norra waits around—just in case. As the bounty hunter steps forward, the door to Temmin’s shop hisses open. The Zabrak steps in. The door slides shut behind her.
The drilling sound stops.
It’s replaced by yelling. They’ve seen her.
Then the yelling cuts short.
Banging. A thud. Blaster fire. Another bang. Three more blaster shots in quick succession. Someone mewling in pain. One more shot. The mewling ends, cut off as fast as it began.
Moments tick by.
The door hisses open.
Jas stands there, a line of dark blood tricking from her nose. Her lip is split. Blood smears her teeth. She gives a wink. “We’re clear. Now go.”
—
“Stand down,” Sinjir growls past the pair of blaster rifles shoved in his face. He lifts his chin and sneers. “Don’t you know who you’re talking to? Didn’t anyone inform you of my presence?”
The two stormtroopers give each other a bewildered look. As if to say, Is this some kind of Jedi mind trick?
Behind Sinjir, in the narrow alley, a few Myrran citizens hurriedly pass—a scurrying Dug, a pair of washerwomen, an Ugnaught riding on the swooped and bent neck of an Ithorian.
And behind the stormtroopers is a door.
A door that leads to a local communications station. A three-floor dome-shaped building with a tall—if crooked—antenna at the top of it. An antenna that isn’t much to look at. It’s not big enough to climb or hang off of. Were the wind to kick up in a storm, said antenna would probably waggle back and forth like a judgmental finger.
It won’t get a signal out into space.
But it will send one locally.
“Step back,” one of the troopers says.
Sinjir feigns incredulity. “You really…hah, you really don’t know who I am. Your faces will be quite red under those austere helmets when you find out. You have an officer present, I take it? Get him.”
Another shared look. One of the stormtroopers comms: “Sir? We have a…problem at the side entrance. Uh-huh. He’s claiming to be an Imperial? Yes, sir. Yes, sir.” Then to Sinjir: “Officer Rapace will be right down.” He thrusts his rifle up and forward again as if to assert his dominance and to say: Don’t get any funny ideas.
Sinjir is nothing but funny ideas, so, oops, sorry, too late.
Moments later, the door behind the troopers slides open and an Imperial officer—little hat and everything—steps out. A prig-nosed man with a soft, downy beard. “What is this? Who is this?”
“Are you Officer Rapace?” Sinjir says.
“I am. Who are you?”
“I am Loyalty Officer Sinjir Rath Velus.”
There it is. That delicious flinch. A tightening of the eyes. A tremor in the hands. Fear and uncertainty doing a wild and whirling dance. Though Rapace tries not to show it, Sinjir sees it. Because it is his job to see it.
And because everyone is afraid of a loyalty officer.
“We don’t have any, ahh, loyalty officers stationed here,” Rapace says, a bit of a stammer in his voice. He pulls a scanner off his belt and holds it up to Sinjir’s face while the stormtroopers keep their blasters trained on him—though now the barrels are pointed just slightly downward because they know the fear, too. Probably quaking inside that armor.
The scanner beeps.
Rapace seems taken aback. “Sinjir Rath Velus. You…you died on Endor. You are listed as a casualty.”
“Ugh,” Sinjir says, making a distasteful face. “This clerical error has been following me like a bad smell.” He rolls his
eyes. “No, I did not die on Endor, and yes, I am really here, right now, standing in front of you.”
“I…,” Rapace says, bewildered. “You’re not in uniform.”
“I was on leave. But I’m reporting for duty and this local comm station was the closest place for me. An old comm station, wasn’t it? Good for you. Lock down any points of information transmission. Nicely done, Officer.” Before Rapace can blunder through a thank-you, Sinjir says, “May we go inside? I would like to evaluate the situation.”
“Sir,” Rapace says with a stiff nod. “Of course, Loyalty Officer Velus. Right away.” He turns heel-to-toe, trying to put a ceremonial spin on it as if to indicate what a good Imperial he is, and marches inside.
Sinjir passes the two stormtroopers. “You two. Inside, as well.”
“But sir, we’re guarding the door—”
“Are you questioning a loyalty officer? Perhaps you should remain out here. I could search your quarters. Dig through your files. Speak to Rapace about any instances of…insubordination that may have occurred.”
“Lead the way, sir,” the other stormtrooper says.
(When Sinjir turns his back, the one elbows the other.)
They step in through the door.
The door closes behind them.
Officer Rapace walks ahead toward a set of dimly lit steps curving upward to the second floor.
At the door outside: a knock-knock-knock. Metal rapping on metal.
Which means: Now is the time.
The stormtroopers turn, grunting in confusion. Soon as they start to pivot, Sinjir reaches behind Rapace to snatch his pistol—while, with his other hand, he shoves the officer forward.
He shoots Rapace in the back. The officer pitches face-first.
The stormtroopers cry out in alarm and wheel back toward him. But for them, it’s too late. The door opens. Framed there in the doorway is the battle droid—Temmin’s droid. Bones. His astromech leg spins up like a turbine rotor and hits one of the troopers so hard in the helmet the white armor splits down the middle like a cracked kukuia nut. The other cries out in panic, and is silenced by a vibroblade punched through his chest plate.
The stormtroopers drop.
“HELLO MAY I COME IN,” Mister Bones intones.
Sinjir sighs. “I think you said that part a little late.”
“ROGER-ROGER.”
From the staircase: the dull clack-and-thud of footsteps. Sinjir positions himself next to and just behind a small footlocker—and as soon as the other two stormtroopers appear, he squeezes off two shots in quick succession. The one tumbles forward. The other topples backward and slides down on his smooth armor. They lie still.
Sinjir nods to the droid. “Tell Temmin it’s time.”
“MASTER TEMMIN. HIS NAME IS MASTER TEMMIN.”
“Yes, great, fine, tell Master Temmin it’s time.”
“ROGER-ROGER!”
—
Norra sits on the rooftop of the old outfitter’s store. Used to belong to that old Tuskface—the Aqualish, Torvo Bolo—before it burned down. Bolo played at being a hard-ass, but he’d always sneak her and Esmelle little candy-swirl sticks while he sold provisions to their parents. Story goes that it was someone from the black market who burned it down. Simple enough to increase black-market profits if the black market suddenly includes items that were once easy to come by.
But that’s Akiva. The corruption once held fast to the satrapy and its backstabbing aristocracy leaked out like a punctured slabin barrel, got all over everything. Became toxic in that dose. A changed world.
But that’s a thought for another time. Now: There’s a task at hand.
Across the narrow street sits another rooftop: the old Karyvinhouse Plantation. Home then and now to one of those duplicitous aristocrat families, the Karyvin clan. Old money. They own islands down in the Southern Archipelago, they own crystal mines in the Northern Jungles. All their children always seem to skip the Academy and head right to officers’ school, not climbing the Imperial ranks so much as pole-vaulting over them.
On the rooftop: two TIE fighters. This quiet, sub rosa occupation of Myrra has left a number of the Imperial short-range fighters parked on Empire-friendly rooftops all around the city.
Norra needs one of them.
She glances behind her, watching the rooftop of the Saltwheel Playhouse. The rooftop where a branch of a gnarled old-growth jarwal tree broke off and fell years ago, and still sits.
Norra waits and waits.
How long is this going to take? Jas should’ve been—
There.
A flash. A little mirror catching sunlight.
It’s time.
Norra scoops up a bit of broken mortar from the rooftop, and then pitches it hard. It hits the vertical wing of the TIE—pock! And then, sure enough, from around the far side: Here comes the TIE pilot. Helmet off, tucked under his arm. Hand drifting to his pistol.
He bends down, picks up the thrown hunk of mortar.
Norra stands, whistles.
He perks his head up like a whistle-pig at its hole. It takes him a moment to even register that there’s someone there. He starts to yell at her—“You there!”—and his hand moves toward his blaster.
From far behind Norra, toward the playhouse roof: a small sound.
Piff.
The pilot shudders just slightly. His words die in his mouth and he dips his chin to his chest and stares, bewildered, at the hole there.
He doesn’t collapse so much as he just…crumples.
Norra psyches herself up. She’s older now. Not as spry as she once was. Her bones don’t ache all the time—just in the mornings—but it’s enough to remind her she’s not a young mother jetting around the galaxy anymore. Time has ground her down. She’s a good pilot, but all this running and jumping? It’s not really her bag.
It’s a short jump. You can do it.
Deep breath and then—Norra runs. She crosses the general store rooftop, and ahead the narrow street gap looms and she tries not to think about falling, tries not to think about dropping three stories and breaking her body on the plastocrete below, and she plants her heel at the edge of the rooftop to make the jump…
…just as a second TIE pilot emerges and sees her.
The blaster is already in his hand and he starts firing.
Norra’s foot skids out from under her and she falls off the rooftop.
—
Temmin kneels. Holds up both hands in front of his face. He stares through his fingers at the blaster barrel pointed toward him.
“Please,” he pleads. “Please. I didn’t do anything.”
The Imperial officer chuckles and then says: “I know.”
Temmin springs to his feet, feigns trying to run the other way—
The blaster goes off. The bolt hits him in the back.
He drops. The air gone from his lungs. He wants to cry out, gasp, roll around, try to suck in a fresh breath. But he has to hold it. This has to look convincing. Stay still. Don’t move. Don’t even breathe.
Play dead.
Moments pass. Temmin feels like he’s going blue in the face.
Then, finally—
“Did we get it?” the Imperial officer—Sinjir, actually—says.
Mister Bones stands there, still as a coatrack. “WHAT.”
Temmin lets out a breath as he stands up and pulls the comm-relay panel out from under his shirt. A deep dent sits in the middle of the steel grid. These plates line the outside of the receiver tower on the roof, and are meant to survive the mausin-storms, so they’re pretty damn indestructible. “This dent looks awful close to being a hole,” he says, chiding Sinjir.
“Well, sorry,” Sinjir snips. “It was your idea to use the relay panel. Besides, this was all necessary for the ruse. Now will you please ask your psychotic automaton if he captured the footage?”
“Bones, did you get that footage?”
“ROGER-ROGER, MASTER TEMMIN.”
Then the droid star
ts humming to himself. Shuffling from foot to foot almost as if trying not to dance, but dancing anyway.
Sinjir asks the droid: “And you have Norra’s recording?”
“ROGER-ROGER.”
He turns to Temmin: “And you have the—”
“Yeah, yeah, I have the holodisk. This thing has gone everywhere. Everybody seems to have it. Or seen it.” He reluctantly admits: Mom had a pretty good plan. This part, at least. The rest? He’s not so sure. He definitely doesn’t want to leave this planet. This is his home. This is where he has his business. His life. And she just wants to rip him away? Take him offworld to—where? Chandrila? Naboo? Gross. He tries to shake off the feeling. “You know, this place. It used to transmit the news. My mom and dad used to listen to it. But the satrapy shut it down on Imperial orders.” He thinks but does not say: And then it turns out my dad was using this very console to transmit rebel propaganda all across Akiva.
The irony is not lost on him.
Sinjir pulls a chair away from the console and pushes it toward him. “And you really think you can hack the signal?”
“I built him, didn’t I?” Temmin thumbs in the direction of the droid. He sits in the chair, blows dust off the console.
Mister Bones is slicing his vibroblade through the air, trying to attack a moth. Finally, he succeeds—then comes a tiny little bzzt as the moth is sliced in twain, two little white wings fluttering to the ground, smoldering.
“Yes,” Sinjir says, voice as dry as an old biscuit. “That is what I’m worried about.”
—
Norra’s lungs and shoulders burn as she clings to the plantation rooftop, her hands scrabbling on the wet ledge. Her boot toes scrape futilely against the wall as she tries to pull herself up.
A shadow looms over her.
The TIE pilot. Standing there, pistol pointed.
“You killed NK-409. He was a friend. You rebel sssssss—”
He staggers back. His finger reaching to probe the hole in the dead center of his black chest plate.
“Scum,” he finishes.
Then pitches forward—right toward her. Norra cries out and hugs the wall as close as she can. She can feel the air disturbed behind her as the pilot plunges through and plummets to the street below.
Her fingers start to slip. She thinks of the dead man below.