by Chuck Wendig
“You don’t know that. I need to get to the cockpit! I can fly this ship. Me. Only me! I’m a good pilot. Or…was. Once.”
“Then we need to get to the cabin. The pressure doors are sealed, you nerf-wit. You know this ship? Tell me how to get…somewhere, anywhere.”
The man groans as he stands. His joints and bones creak and pop. “Move the…move that bed back. There should be a maintenance hatch under there. But I don’t have a tool to open it.”
Is nobody ever prepared? Temmin rolls his eyes and pops the multitool off his belt. He starts to move the bed. Sure enough: a flat hatch sealed with flanser-bolts. They’ll take time. He gets to work.
—
Pandion stands. Norra watches him take slow steps toward Sinjir, on whom he seems singularly focused. “You were an Imperial, once,” Pandion says. “A loyalty officer. Is that right?”
“That is accurate,” Sinjir says.
“Ironic, then. That your own loyalty was in question.”
“Not really. I was taught early on in my training to see the weakness in others. It was only a matter of time before I saw the weakness in the whole of the Empire.” Sinjir grins past bloody teeth. “Look closely and you see the whole thing is shot through with cracks and fractures.”
Pandion walks closer. A slow, measured step. A cruelty flashing in his eyes, pulsing and flaring like the lights overhead. “The only weakness in the Empire is men like you. Men who are not committed enough. Men who betray the cause because of a failing inside them. Bruised hearts and diminished minds. The Empire is made stronger when fools like you fall.”
Even with his hands behind his back, Sinjir manages a shrug.
“Seems to me,” he says, “that the weakness in the Empire is in men like you, Moff Pandion. Paltry, ineffectual idiots. Men who want to be leaders more than they want to actually lead. And besides, what is a moff, anyway? A meager sector head. Even the name sounds weak. Moff. Moff. It’s the sound a dog makes as it regurgitates its dinner—”
Whap. Pandion backhands Sinjir.
A line of blood snakes down the ex-Imperial’s chin from his lip.
Sinjir licks it away.
“Moff, moff, moff,” he says again, mocking.
Norra warns him: “Sinjir, don’t—”
But it’s too late. Pandion is on him again, this time hauling Sinjir up by the collar of his stolen officer’s uniform. He hits him once, twice, a third time and Sinjir’s head rocks back on his shoulders.
“Stop!” Norra cries. “Stop.”
Pandion hisses at her. “Shut up, scum.”
Sinjir seizes the opportunity. He spits a tooth—one of his own—at Moff Pandion’s face. It bounds off the space between the Imperial’s eyes, and as he blinks in surprise, Sinjir head-butts him.
Crack.
Pandion staggers back. Twin streams of blood trickle down his nose. His face twists up like a terrible knot. “You. Traitor.” He wipes blood from his nose, then draws his blaster. “You won’t make it to trial.”
Jas speaks up: “Let me do it.”
Pandion squints. “What?”
“I’ll do it. For the right price.”
“Price? After you’ve thrown in with this lot?”
“The bounty on your head was too good, Pandion. But I’m sure there’s more than enough credits to compensate me. Looking at this yacht alone, I can see we’re on a banking ship. Surely you’re willing to pay me more than the New Republic was to capture you.”
“Capture me?”
“It was all about you. You have a very high bounty.”
He sneer-smirks. “Yes. I should have expected that. How high was the bounty?”
“Ten thousand credits.”
“Should’ve been higher,” he snits. “Still. I’ll give you twenty thousand from Arsin Crassus’s coin purse to execute this traitor. Right here, right now. What say you?”
Crassus stands, blustery and blithering: “What? You can’t. I didn’t make that offer!”
“And yet I take it on good faith you wouldn’t want to deny the Empire,” Moff Pandion says. He turns the blaster toward Crassus. “Right?”
“Ah…absolutely. What’s mine is yours.”
Pandion chuckles. “Good.” He spins the blaster around and approaches Jas Emari, extending the weapon out. “Here you go, Zabrak. Take it. It’s yours. Oh. What’s that? Your hands are bound?” He clucks his tongue. “What a shame. Guess we don’t have a deal. Because the Empire doesn’t do deals with bounty hunters anymore.”
He wheels back with the blaster and moves to strike her.
Norra cries out.
But Jas is fast. Her hands—they’re free. Somehow. She catches his hand and twists his wrist. Pandion cries out and she snatches the blaster from him and wheels him around, pointing the gun to his head.
“Nobody shoot, or I take off the top of his head with his own blaster,” Jas warns. Jylia maintains her seat, and Crassus keeps standing. Stormtroopers and Imperial Guards point weapons, but Pandion waves them off, saying:
“No. No. Wait. Put them down. Let her speak.”
Norra thinks: How did she get free?
But then Sinjir steps up. The shackles fall off his wrists, too.
Suddenly a voice calls from beneath her. She turns and looks, sees a pair of eyes looking up through the room-length vent that runs along the seam between the wall and the floor. A little multitool reaches out through the vent. She hears a voice:
“Mom, move your wrists closer. I can pick the lock.”
—
Out the front of the yacht, a TIE fighter spirals toward them, fire jetting from its one side into the unforgiving maw of space. Morna yanks back on the flight stick, moves the flying brick out of the way just in time. Their own ship shudders as the TIE explodes somewhere out of sight.
Ahead, a pair of TIEs chase a rebel X-wing. They swoop and dip. Beyond them: the Star Destroyer Vigilance. Not far now, Rae thinks.
She brings up Tothwin on the comm.
His nervous face appears on screen.
“We’re coming in,” Rae says. “Bay G2D1.”
“Of course, Admiral. We’re taking a lot of damage and the shields—”
Morna leans over. “We’re coming in hot. I can’t slow this thing down. Something is fritzed.”
Rae adds: “Have extinguisher droids on hand, we’re coming in—”
From one of the rebel frigates, a massive blast arcs through space, striking the Vigilance. A burst of fire and debris from the bridge. Tothwin’s image dissolves and the link is gone.
“Admiral?” Morna asks. “We can’t land there. The Vigilance—”
“Remains for the moment. The plan is the same.”
“Admiral, I strongly advise—”
“I have a plan. Take us in.
“Same bay. The Vigilance remains, and I have a plan.”
—
Tension in the room runs so high that, should a pin drop, everyone might start firing their blasters. Jas stands with Pandion’s blaster held to his temple, her other hand clamped around his neck. Norra is up now, shaking off her shackles. Sinjir is helping Temmin crawl up through a maintenance hatch in the middle of the floor. Norra rushes over and picks him up and gives him a long, crushing hug.
Pandion jeers: “How touching. But what now, bounty hunter? You’ve got one weapon among you, and a dozen pointed in your direction.”
“That one weapon is pointed at your head,” she says.
“Ah, yes. But then what, exactly? We land and…you continue this threat? Eventually you’ll meet someone who doesn’t care if I live or die.”
“I’d say we’ve already met several.”
He scoffs. “This charade is temporary. What is your plan?”
She wears a feral grin and licks her lips. “I have no plan. What I do have is your blaster and my friends and luck on our side. Plus: We’re very good at improvising, as you can well see.”
“You’ll pay for this.”
“No,
” she says. “We’ll get paid for this.”
—
Rae straps in.
The Star Destroyer looms closer and closer. Bay G2D1 awaits covered with the faint blue shimmer of the shields. Shields that she believes are failing, which means soon, the Vigilance will be no more.
To Morna, she says: “I trust you not to kill us.”
The pilot nods. “That’s the plan.”
She winces as she brings the yacht in through the front of the bay. Rae feels the speed now, sees everything zooming up to them fast, too fast, and the deck rushes up—
The yacht hits it hard. Pain goes through her—an ache through her wrists and neck as the g-forces threaten to rip her asunder. The yacht lands hard, and as the lights again go out all she hears is the grinding of metal on metal as the whole thing shifts sideways, skidding fast and loose across the Imperial Star Destroyer’s bay.
Fzzt. Fzzt.
Sparks in the dark. Circuits pop and fizzle. Panels swing, hanging by loose wires. A haze of smoke fills the air. Smells duel for supremacy: the stink of hot metal, the odor of melting plastic. A third stench: electric ozone.
Light comes in from outside. Garish, bright, artificial light.
Norra groans and lifts her chest off the uneven ground. She tries to figure out what happened, but it doesn’t take her long to realize, because she’s been in this situation too many times before:
We crash-landed.
Underneath her, Temmin lies unmoving.
Oh, no.
“Temmin. Temmin!” She pulls him up and he suddenly draws a sharp breath, his eyes fluttering open. She laughs and pulls him close.
“Ow,” he says.
“Sorry.”
“No. I’m sorry.”
“Not now,” she says. “Later. Now we have to—”
Someone moves through the space. Norra’s eyes adjust and she sees Jas stalking through the ruined room, emerging from a whorl of black smoke. She stands over a body, points the blaster down, and fires.
The blue pulse from a stun charge warbles in the air.
Whoever is lying there shudders and goes slack.
Jas looks over. Sees Norra—she reaches out a hand and helps her up, then Temmin. To the boy, the bounty hunter says: “You’re late.”
“Jas, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“Stop there. We’re fine.”
From behind them, a cough and sputter before Sinjir says: “Yes, please. I’m not dead but I may yet choke on your rank sentimentality. I cannot say for sure exactly what happened, but I’d put considerable credits down on a bet that says we should not dally.”
“You talk a lot for not dallying,” Jas says.
“And you certainly do love an unnecessary retort—”
Norra interrupts: “Focus up, crew. What’s our status?”
“We crashed,” Jas says. “Obviously.” She gestures with her foot by way of a gentle kick. “That body belongs to Adviser Yupe Tashu. Now stunned. I also secured Jylia Shale, the general.” She points, and Norra can make out a crumpled shape. “Beyond her is Crassus. He didn’t make it. Along with most of these stormtroopers.”
One starts to stir, and she fires a stun blast at him. He thumps back down to the ground with a gurgled groan.
“And Pandion?”
“Gone.”
Norra nods. “Come on.”
They step toward the back of the room, and together they push on a scrap of metal—that’s where the light’s coming in, and collectively they peel back part of the hull. Enough for them to slip through.
Out there, the bay entrance—a rectangle looking out into space. And onto a space battle: New Republic ships launch a fusillade from their cannons. The darkness is lit up with the vigor of war.
In here: an Imperial Star Destroyer bay. Alarms go off.
The entire ship rumbles and vibrates.
A TIE interceptor screams past the bay entrance, chased by a pair of arrowhead-shaped A-wings. Norra thinks: I want to be out there. An odd feeling. A scared feeling. But eager and hungry for it just the same.
“Look,” Temmin says. She follows him pointing—
At the other end of the bay, a line of Lambda-class shuttles and a pair of TIE fighters. One of the shuttles lifts up off the ground.
“You.” Norra points to Jas. “Take the others. Get your bounties and haul them on board one of those shuttles. You can fly it, right?”
Jas nods. “Not as well as you, I wager, but yes. I’m capable.”
“Capable,” Sinjir says. “There’s that word again.”
“You help her, Sinjir. Temmin, I need you to do something real important. Are you listening?”
“O…okay. Say the word.”
“Go back inside that yacht. Find Captain Wedge Antilles. You hear me? Find him and get him out.” Please let him be okay. After all this…
Temmin asks: “Mom, what are you doing?”
“I’m going to take one of those TIE fighters and I’m going after whoever that is.” She points to the shuttle as it roars toward them, its cannons firing—she pulls the others down behind the wreckage of the yacht as the laser blasts stitch a line of craters along the docking bay floor before the shuttle races toward the exit and off into space.
Norra wastes no time because there is no time to waste.
She’s up on her feet, hard-charging toward the TIE fighters. She hears her son calling for her—asking her not to leave, asking her not to die, telling her to let it go. But she knows she can’t. She knows who she is and what she does. And this is it. It is time to fly once more.
Once again, the almost lunatic freedom of the TIE fighter. Norra plunges the small Imperial ship into the maelstrom of battle. Cannon fire is tearing past her in both directions, laser blasts crisscrossing the void in front of her. She hunts the stars for her prey, and just as she sees the Lambda-class signal out there in the dark, an X-wing comes diving from above her like a raptor bird and she realizes: I’m in an Imperial ship.
The Jedi are known for having the Force—she doesn’t know what that is or if it’s even a real thing (though Skywalker certainly makes it look like it’s no myth), but she knows she doesn’t have it. Just the same, she has what she has, which is an uncanny ability to just turn her brain off. Stop her mind from chattering. Stop thinking about details.
Stop thinking and just feel.
The X-wing comes down on her and she reacts without thinking, bringing the TIE fighter up where the X-wing goes in the opposite direction. Then a Y-wing is in her sights, and she has to juke the TIE back and forth, starboard to port and back again, in order to avoid the incoming blasts.
She quickly fumbles with the communicator and signals to rebel comms: “This is Norra Wexley, call sign Gold Nine. I have taken command of this TIE. Repeat: I have taken command of this TIE.”
Inside her head she adds: Please don’t kill me.
—
Commander Agate stands on the bridge of the old Alderaanian frigate, the Sunspire. Out there, she watches the battle unfold. It’s easy to stare at it and be lost—not lost because you don’t know what’s happening, but sucked into it, drawn to it like a winged thing toward a plasma torch. Hypnotized, in a way. Idly, she realizes: We’re winning this battle.
Which means they’re winning this war.
There, though, a new question haunts Agate in the back of her mind:
What then?
Behind her, Ensign Uray stands. The blue-skinned Pantoran says: “We are winning this engagement, Commander.”
“Winning does not mean won. Keep up the pressure.”
“Yes, Commander. There’s something else.” A pause, then: “There’s a pilot out there in a TIE fighter. Claiming to be…well, one of ours. From Gold Squadron.”
“That seems unlikely.”
“And yet it’s what she claims.”
She ponders. Could be a trap. But to what end? A single TIE fighter could do what? They are suicide machines, but why this ruse?
> Her gut twinges, tells her which way to go.
“Give her support. Get her on the comm. Let’s see what’s going on.”
—
Plugging in hyperspace coordinates is no easy feat during a space battle. Get it wrong and put the ship in the wrong space and the only place you’ll end up with great speed is the grave. (Though here Rae admits: If ever she is to die, it should be out here, in space. Born from stardust, returned to stardust. She cares little for such poetry, but this appeals to her, somehow.)
“Almost there,” Rae says. “Keep us flying, Morna.”
Her pilot nods.
Inside her heart, Rae regrets the loss of those they left behind. Adea in particular. Whether the woman is alive or dead, she cannot say. Adea certainly deserves life, but if death is her end, then it was a noble one in service to the great Galactic Empire.
The door to the cockpit hisses open.
Which is curious, because she and Morna Kee are the only two on this shuttle—or so she had thought.
She wheels around, knowing already who she’ll see.
Pandion.
He’s got a blaster in his hand. A line of blood is drying upon a long cut crossing his brow. His nose appears broken. His mouth, bloody, and the rest of his uniform looks dirty, dusty, in tatters.
“You survived,” she says.
“I did,” he says with a curious smile. A smile that quickly dies on his face. “Let me tell you how this will go. You’re going to the Ravager. You will take me to that Star Destroyer, and then I will take control of it in return. It is mine, now, Admiral. Not yours. The last great weapon of the Empire is in my control because you are incapable of wielding it.”
The shuttle quickly ducks a hail of incoming blasts. Rae steadies herself on her chair. Pandion remains standing, leering, scowling.
“You fool,” she says. “You eager, egotistical fool. Grand Moff. Pfah. You have so much, so wrong. The Ravager is not the last weapon. Nor do I even control it. There is…another.”
His face twitches. “You don’t mean…”
“I do mean. He’s not dead.”
“But you said he was.”
“I lied.” She shrugs.
“This was…all his plan. Wasn’t it? I should’ve seen it. I fell for a trap. We all fell for your trap. You betrayer. You foul, wretched betrayer.”