by Chuck Wendig
Calm down, he tells himself. Think.
But he doesn’t think and he doesn’t calm down.
He roars in rage and brings his good fist down on the console again and again, because whatever chance he had has been squandered, and the effort undertaken to capture this turret in the first place didn’t do a damn thing to help the New Republic and—
With the last hit, the console suddenly glows bright.
“What the…”
Outside the window, the twin cannons adjust, tracking the target.
The whole turret shakes as it fires, filling the cockpit with the bright, demonic light of turbolaser blasts.
—
It’s going well. Too well. Sloane feels the twist of dread in her gut, and that twist only tightens when Morna turns and says with a frown:
“We have a problem, Admiral.”
Of course we do.
“What is it, pilot?”
“A rebel fleet. Coming into space above Akiva.”
Perfectly atrocious timing.
“How big?”
“Big enough to be a problem.”
“Let’s just get us to the Vigilance safe, Morna. Then we can—”
Again, the pilot’s screen starts flashing.
“What now?” Rae snaps.
Morna’s eyes light up with panic and confusion. “One of our turrets. From the ground. It’s tracking us. It’s about to—”
The ship rocks and shudders. Rae’s head snaps back and she tumbles out of her chair. Everything goes dark.
—
Lasers scorch the air above Temmin’s head—he runs, ducks, and dives onto his belly to avoid getting cooked. He rolls over and puts his hands up to surrender—
He can see they’re not going to let him.
The stormtroopers raise the rifles again.
And the wall next to them suddenly disappears.
The ship jolts hard to the right as a bright flash tears through it, ripping it open from underneath. Taking the wall, the floor, and the Imperials away—what’s left of them spirals away out the open hole. Wind keens like a mournful beast. Temmin feels it start to pull at him as the whole hallway depressurizes: He grabs out with a hand as the yacht starts to dip, catching one of the cabin door handles. Fixtures start popping off the walls, vacuumed out into the swirling clouds. At both ends of the hall, pressure doors start to close, sealing off the middle portion of the yacht.
Temmin kicks open the cabin door, pulling away from the hungry winds trying to suck him out into the void. He throws himself inside.
—
Emergency klaxons blare. The panel dash on the shuttle is lit up in an array of panicked flashes. Rae hauls herself back into the chair. Morna never left hers. Her arms are extended outward, and the tendons in her neck stand taut like bridge cables. She fights to keep the yacht aloft—it starts to dip but she pulls back and she again lifts its nose.
“Status!” Sloane demands.
“Kinda busy, Admiral,” Morna hisses through her teeth.
Rae wants to chastise her, but the pilot is right. She instead pulls up the screen, sees the damage was straight to the middle underside of the yacht. Near to where the first-floor cabins are. Both halves of the ship are sealing off with pressure doors, which means they’re not dead yet and nobody has to abandon ship. But it does mean that the front half of the yacht—in which Rae sits right now—is separate and in fact inaccessible to the back half. And the middle of the ship is a no-being’s-land.
The ship bounces and judders like it’s about to come apart. Morna warns: “The atmosphere is rough up here. Could tear us apart. Almost to orbit. Almost there.”
“Keep it together,” Rae demands.
If anybody can do this: Morna can.
—
The lights buzz and flicker. They go from darkness, to red emergency lighting, back to full lights—then back to darkness once more.
Jas doesn’t know what happened, but best guess is that they took a hit. From where, she cannot say. She’s surprised they’re still aloft. Good thing this is a pretty big ship, but even still, they’re all lucky that the whole thing didn’t get sheared in half with both pieces plunging to planetside.
Panic has filled the Imperial ranks now. Murmuring and frittering about. Crassus whining about his yacht. The adviser, Yupe Tashu, praying in some heretical tongue to beseech whatever Dark Force he calls upon in times of crisis. Shale simply leans forward, head between her legs. Like she might be sick. She’s a general—used to, in part, being on the ground. Or in a cloistered war room somewhere. She’s not a soldier, or at least hasn’t been for years.
Jas, for her part, just sits still.
Like Pandion, who seems to have a real hate for Sinjir. It’s there in the way he stares at the other man. Black eyes like a pair of blaster barrels ready to fire.
A stormtrooper enters. “We’re cut off from the front of the ship. Pressure doors have sealed us off.”
Pandion, without turning his gaze from Sinjir, picks up his communicator and speaks into it: “Admiral Sloane, are you there?”
His comm crackles. Her voice emerges: broken, staticky, but there.
“Moff Pandion. We’re presently occupied.”
“Should we expect to die? This ship has escape pods, does it not?”
Sloane’s voice returns: “We’re safe. Almost in orbit. Patience.”
Jas doesn’t know what’s going on.
But chaos has sunk its teeth into the situation.
And in chaos, there lurks opportunity.
“They’re coming in!” Borgin Kaa cries to his young girlfriend: the dancer Linara. She gives him a look of panic as he gestures toward the front door of his luxury domicile where a line of sparks is drawing its way up the outer edge of the magnalocked portal. The sparks burn bright and ease upward with the speed and perfection of a confident, practiced hand.
The older man fumbles around the foyer table and finds a ceramic vase from the Vinzor Legacy. It’s an artifact many millennia old, dating back to the Old Republic. Or so he’s told. All he cares—or cared—about is that it’s worth something. The way it’s shot through with blue lacite. Like gleaming cerulean spiderwebs. Blazing blue.
He hates to do it, but he palms the vase.
It’s a weapon, he thinks. Not an ancient, valuable artifact.
His heart hammers in his chest.
Did he take his tincture this morning?
Did he forget?
Is he going to die?
No! I’ve lived this long. I’m on the list. Cloud City has become quite the destination to procure rare implants: new oculars, custom-tailored hands, whole new organ systems for whatever human or alien can pay. He needs a new heart. He was on the list—still is, he hopes. But then the rebel villains had to muck everything up and the Empire stepped in and took over this sector and now all those implants are on hold.
The Imperials will fix this. The Emperor has assured the galaxy of peace.
The embers dance around the final curve of the door, then down to the floor.
The portal hisses and slides open.
Through the smoke he sees the shapes of the trespassers—Linara cries out, and Borgin grunts and heaves the vase hard. It hits to the side of the door, missing. It doesn’t even break. The thing just goes thud and lands on the floor.
Apparently the Vinzors knew how to make a vase.
Figures storm in, blasters up. Two of them he doesn’t recognize: a Devaronian woman and a lanky, clanking PAD—a personal assistant droid—on whose tarnished silver faceplate someone has painted a black skull.
The other two he does recognize: the local miscreant, Kars Tal-Korla—aka, the Scourge of Cloud City. Hard not to recognize him. He’s on every poster and cautionary holovid here in the city! The Empire wants him bad, and now here he is—live inside Borgin’s own apartment. Wearing his trademark armor: a mismatched patchwork set of Mandalorian, Corellian, and even bits of Imperial trooper thrown in for good measure.
Next to him, though, is the real surprise:
Jintar Oarr—
Fellow Onderonian. Wealthy beyond measure. One of the residents here in the luxury levels of Cloud City alongside Borgin.
A friend. Or was, once.
“You,” Borgin says, pointing a thick finger at the man. Jintar, that handsome prig. Sharp-cut beard. Eyes like gray clouds. Even the lines in his face look distinguished.
But as Borgin thrusts his accusing finger up, the Devaronian steps in, grabs his finger, and bends it back. Pain arcs like a blaster bolt up to his elbow. He howls in a way that shames him—a piggy, high-pitched squeal, like the sound one of those Ugnaughts makes when it tumbles into the machines—and then he drops to his knees as she with her other hand jams the barrel of her blaster rifle against his forehead.
“Wait,” Jintar says. He reaches for her wrist, and she hisses at him like a snake. He stays his hand, but then says to her: “Let me talk to him.”
Kars gives a nod. “Let them speak. But we’re on a timetable here—so make it snappy.” To the assistant droid he barks: “Go find that access panel.”
Access panel? Borgin’s gaze follows the droid as it totters out of the foyer and down the hall—but before he can see where the metal man is going, the Devaronian grabs his chin with a rough pull and turns his face toward her.
“Your friend would like to speak with you.”
Jintar kneels. “Bor,” he says. “Listen to me. We’ve been lied to. Adelhard has sealed off the whole sector. Massive blockades with a ragtag Imperial remnant. But that’s not how they keep control. They keep control by lying to us.” He takes a deep breath. “The Emperor is dead, Bor. It’s been confirmed.”
“Lies,” Borgin hisses. “Of course, that’s what his type would have you believe!” He gestures with his chin toward the rebel, Kars. The scruffy pirate in the patchwork armor does nothing but scowl and shake his head. “I’ve seen the holovids. You have, too. Palpatine is alive and well on Coruscant and—”
“He’s just a stand-in. A proxy. An actor.”
“No. More rebel lies.”
“We’ve done the comparison. The vids don’t match. This…person in the dark robes isn’t Palpatine. Different chin, different gestures. A poor facsimile.”
“You’re a traitor.”
Jintar’s face falls. Sadness flashes in his eyes. “No, Borgin. You’re the traitor.”
“The Empire’s been good to us.”
“It has. But it hasn’t been good to everyone else. And the righteous folks of the galaxy will see that. Which means I’m calling on you to act.” Jintar’s voice softens. That man could coax a slakari-hound off a rotten carcass. “We could use your help.”
Help. They want his help?
That’s not happening. Borgin roars—he’s been in a few fights back in the day, back when he was a young mining baron on the Sevarcos moon. Sure, he’s older now, much older, and heavier, but he lurches upward, slamming his head into Jintar’s—
Stars explode behind his eyes. He falls back on his tailbone. Someone reaches for him, but he cries out and swats the hand away.
Jintar is wincing, his forehead already showing the bloom of a future bruise. Borgin, though, tastes blood.
It’s the rebel’s turn. Kars steps into view. Blurry. Borgin blinks. The pirate scratches at his stubble and twirls the pistol at his hip. “Let’s talk this through. You’ve got an access panel in the back. It’s tied into the same conduit as Governor Adelhard’s chamber up on the prime tower. We need that panel opened. You give us the code, we’ll be happy. You don’t give us the code, we’ll have to do it ourselves.” Kars’s mouth sharpens into a wicked razor-angle grin. “And we won’t be happy.”
“Brutes! Bullies! Criminals.”
Kars sighs. “Okay, then. Rorna?”
He gives a nod, and the Devaronian woman pistons a fist into Borgin’s side. Borgin bleats and flails—Jintar catches his hands and wrenches them behind his back. He feels his hands being stuffed into something. A fabric bag. A sock, maybe. Then the rip of bonding tape coming off its roll as it winds around his wrists.
“Linara!” he cries. “Linara, save me!”
But his girlfriend merely looks down at him the way a disappointed mother looks down at her troublemaker child. She asks Kars: “Is there anything I can do?”
The pirate chuckles, then tosses her a roll of bonding tape. “Why not close up that gassy vent of his he calls a mouth?”
Borgin protests: “Linara, I’ve been good to you. We love each other. Don’t you do this to me. I’ll punish you! I’ll punish your whole family! I’ll end their loans and stack debtors against them and—”
She slaps the tape against his mouth. And she doesn’t stop there. She winds it around his head once, twice, a third time. It looks like she’s enjoying it.
“Mmph! Mmph.” Translation: The Emperor will have your heads for this.
Kars nods. From the back of the domicile, the sound of a whirring drill. Kars lifts a wrist-comm to his mouth: “Tell Lobot we have to do it the hard way.”
The Devaronian says in a lower voice, “We could torture the code out of the rich man. It would be no small pleasure.” Said with a feral smirk.
The pirate waves her off, then away from his comm he says: “No. We have specific instructions. No such shenanigans. We’re to keep this clean, aboveboard. Blah blah blah, the Alliance doesn’t do it ‘like that.’ ” Then, back to his wrist: “Yeah. Yeah, I’m listening. Tell Lobot to make sure he’s standing by with the intrusion team. And get a message to Calrissian. Tell him we’re almost in and that he can transfer the credits—” He pauses. “No, you know what? Tell him we’re doing this one gratis. On the house. He and his New Republic pals can owe me a favor. Make sure to emphasize that. A big favor.”
Scum. Scum!
Jintar once more kneels down. “You’re on the wrong side of history, Bor. You never did understand that the galaxy was more than one man.”
And like that, the pale blue skies of atmosphere give way to the gradient darkness of space—and that gradient fades, too, becoming not part shadow, but all dark. The comforting void. Because that’s what it is, to Rae: a comforting emptiness. It gives her pause. The vastness. The endlessness of it all. To feel small in it, but also powerful enough to matter in its midst.
At present, though, she can find no comfort.
Because, ahead of them: War rages in the black.
A brute-force battle. No elegance, no aplomb. On one side, a trio of Star Destroyers firing salvo after salvo of blasts. Those attacks met by the incoming rebel fleet: five ships, each smaller than the Destroyers, but no less potent. And between the two of them, a swarm of ships like flocks of night birds. Trading fire. Some of them burning bright as they spiral like the crackling, wheeling fireworks set off by laughing children.
She chews her lip.
“How are we doing?” she asks Morna.
The pilot answers: “Limping along.”
“Sprinting or limping, just get us home.”
—
Commander Agate is shaking.
It’s normal. At least for her. The battle here has begun, and in the beginning of any battle, she shakes. It’s a combination of jangled war nerves and the rush of adrenaline hitting her like lightning overloading a ship’s systems. For years, she tried to hide it. She took meds to still her hands. Tried to remain hidden and alone during the first moments of a battle. Because she couldn’t have those with her see. The shaking was a sign of weakness. But eventually she came to realize:
Showing it off—and not caring who cared—was a sign of strength.
So now she trembles. And she lets it happen. It’s a natural part of who she is as a warrior and a leader of soldiers.
She calms herself by staring out at the black and then back again at the battle map holographically projected above the table. All the pieces moving along as they must. A chaotic dance, but one given over to a kind of precious, special order.
Now, though: a new blip.
She taps the air, zooms in on this uninvited guest.
A yacht? Uninvited and unexpected.
Imperial? Or some unlucky Akivan land baron who thought to make a hasty escape during…an unfolding space battle? That’s either an idiot or a genius piloting that thing. Agate asks Ensign Targada—a gruff Klatooinian with a high brow and a frowning mouth, an ex-slave who is loudly loyal to the New Republic—to track that ship’s course.
“It’s headed for that Star Destroyer,” he says.
An Imperial, then.
Shoot it down?
She hesitates. Things move more slowly than one would think—big capital ships firing fusillade after fusillade at one another while the fighters swoop and spin among the stars—and careful thinking can be a strength of its own. But hesitation can fast become a liability.
Targada echoes her question: “Concentrate fire on the yacht?”
“No,” she says sharply. “It’s damaged. It may play host to a target of high-value intelligence. Destroying it means destroying information we may need.” She curses under her breath. In an ideal world, they’d swoop in and capture. But the battle won’t allow for such a precision maneuver. “Let’s remove their options for landing. Concentrate fire on that Star Destroyer. If they don’t have a place to land, they become quicker pickings.”
—
The strange man throttles Temmin. He’s ruddy-cheeked, with a warty nose and pock-cratered cheeks. The man wears a pilot’s leathers.
“What’s happening?” he asks. The lights flick on and off. “What’s happened to my ship, you little urchin?”
Temmin shoves him back. “Get! Off!”
The man snarls. “You’d better tell me what happened. Did you do something? Are you an insurgent? A rebel terrorist? Scum. Scum!”
Then he rushes Temmin.
Temmin cries out and throws a punch. The man’s nose pops like a blister and he goes down, whimpering. “My ship. My ship!”
The boy has no time for this.
He looks around, his eyes having a hard time adjusting when the lights keep strobing like that. The pilot starts crawling for the door, and Temmin moves and kneels down in front of him. “Out that cabin door, it’s death. You hear me? Death.”