Star Wars - X-Wing - The Bacta War

by Michael A. Stackpole

have utilitarian concessions. The double-walled transparisteel cap keeps warmth

  in and ice out. The waterfalls are wonderful to look at, but they fill our

  reservoir down below and feed our ichthyoculture farms."

  , "I concede the point." Corran smiled. "Tell me more about the disease that's

  causing you problems."

  "It's a virus that mutates quickly and sweeps through the colony." Farl

  shrugged. "Left untreated the symptoms come and go inside two weeks, though

  there is lingering weakness for another month after that. The symptoms are

  congestion, coughing, fatigue, body aches, and a fairly ravenous appetite.

  Bathing in the mineral springs here seems to help, but a bacta bath will be far

  more helpful."

  Ooryl's mouth parts clicked open and shut. "Your virus sounds similar to the

  Cardooine Chills."

  "True, though that illness can only afflict a person once before he or she

  develops immunity." Farl led them on through another atmosphere lock and into a

  darkened corridor. "This virus mutates so quickly that we can't create a

  vaccine. It spreads through the population such that someone just recovering

  from one strain catches the next. On a larger world there would be more of a lag

  time between epidemics, and a bigger world would have more resources to be able

  to deal with the illness. Right now, though, a sick person eats enough food for

  a family of four, and this threatens the whole colony.

  "The most recent strains have been nastier, increasing the appetite and

  debilitating the victims, which is why we sent out our call for bacta." Farl

  sighed. "When we got word from Thyferra about how much it would cost to fill our

  order, well, we fairly well despaired. Then you showed up in-system with a

  tanker ship carrying enough to go a long way toward wiping the epidemic out."

  The small man led them into an office and invited them to sit in rickety, rusty

  chairs. He walked around a makeshift desk and sat on a stool. "So, I need to

  ask, what do we owe you for this bacta? The market value for it is something in

  excess of a billion Imperial credits."

  Corran glanced over at Ooryl, then shook his head. "You don't owe us anything."

  "But this amount of bacta, it is valuable. You must have paid a great deal for

  it."

  The Gand leaned forward. "Ooryl believes Corran would tell you that the bacta

  was collected as part of a bad debt. It cost Corran and Ooryl nothing; therefore

  it's offered freely."

  The puzzled look of amazement on Farl's face slackened into an expressionless

  mask. "I see."

  Corran smiled. "You needn't think of it as stolen, since

  the government that would have demanded payment from you is not legitimate."

  A wry grin twisted the lower half of Farl's face. "Dealing with pirates and

  smugglers holds no difficulty for us. The transparisteel and other modern

  conveniences you see here were not made here, so we have traded with outsiders

  before."

  "If that's not the problem, what is?"

  Farl frowned. "We've always given something in exchange for what we took. In

  some cases we have hidden people from their enemies. The fish we raise here are

  considered delicacies on some worlds and are extinct on others, so some

  collectors favor them. The problem is that a billion credits would buy all of

  them, and most of this colony, too. We will not take charity, but we cannot

  offer you value for what you have given us."

  "I'm sure we can come to some sort of arrangement. You mentioned mineral springs

  as part of your treatment for the chills before, right?"

  "Yes, but I don't see"

  Corran held a hand up and looked at Ooryl. "Flying in here didn't I tell you I'd

  give half a billion credits for a hot bath and a good fish dinner?"

  The Gand hesitated, then nodded extravagantly. "Indeed, Qrygg remembers your

  using those very words. And Qrygg concurred."

  "There you have it, Farl Cort." Corran opened his hands. "A hot bath and a hot

  fish for each of us and we're even."

  The colonial administrator smiled. "I'll see to it that you get your money's

  worth."

  "Liberating the bacta from Iceheart has already done that." Corran laughed

  aloud. "Getting to sit in a hot bath and think about how furious she'll be will

  make the experience just that much more perfect."

  The moment Tycho Celchu's X-wing reverted to realspace, a chill ran through him.

  He had been to Alderaanto its

  Graveyardbefore. He had seen and flown through the stony disk that was all that

  remained of the world on which he had been born and had grown up. His last

  vision of the world as a whole, cohesive ball had come when he shipped out to

  the Imperial Military Academy and the pride that marked that memory now mocked

  him.

  He had returned to Alderaan before, but he had not yet Returned. Among the

  survivors of Alderaan, Returning had taken on a reverence and importance unlike

  any other tradition he could recall. It seemed as if all the mental and

  emotional energy that had been funneled into the planet's pacificistic

  philosophy had been shifted and focused on a person's Return. Some people even

  described their Return as a watershed experience, one that changed their lives

  completely and profoundly, opening them to the greater truth of the universe.

  Those claims had been made by people wearing beatific expressions. They talked

  about what should be done on a Return. They specified what should be said, what

  should be offered, and what should be expected in return. They ritualized what

  Tycho felt should be a distinctly individualized experience, then encouraged

  each other to share their experiences so they could mutually reinforce their

  beliefs in the healing nature of the Return.

  The Return had become something of an industry to service the Alderaanian

  community, and Tycho had not found himself immune to its lures. After guiding

  several bacta tankers to Coruscant, Tycho had set down on the planet and spent

  some time with a few Alderaanian friends. As a result of their conversations, he

  had decided to make his own Return, and then went out and proceeded to buy all

  the things he would need to do it correctly.

  Following the dictates of others rankled him, but he could not deny that inside

  he felt a need to do some of the things bound up in a Return. He purchased a

  Memorial Capsule, then bought little gifts for all of his dead. He picked out

  things he knew they would have enjoyedromantic holodramas for his grandmother

  and sisters, wine for his father, flower bulbs for his mother, and a datacard

  of the latest

  recipes for his mother's fatherthe gourmet. For his brother, he picked up a

  holobio of Luke Skywalker, knowing Skoloc would have thrilled at being able to

  meet Luke and learning the Jedi would be returning to the galaxy. While part of

  him rebelled at the idea of buying these things and jettisoning them to orbit

  amid the Graveyard, the symbology of it satisfied a need inside of himself to

  place amid the shards of the world items that would mark the lives of people of

  whom there was no longer a trace.

  Choosing something to memorialize Nyiestra had been all but impossible. He had

  kno
wn her all his life, and before he hit puberty, he knew he loved her and

  would marry her. He had been as certain of that as he had been that the sun

  would rise and set on Alderaan for the rest of their lives. She had agreed to

  wait for him throughout his time at the Academy and then even through his first

  year of duty. If he survived a year as a TIE pilot, then he'd get moved up in

  the chain of fleet command, making it possible for him to marry and start a

  family. Never had he doubted, never had she doubted he would survive that first

  year, so to both of them their future had been assured.

  Then the Death Star exploded that future. Another chill sank through Tycho,

  puckering his flesh. Because his father was the CEO of Novacom, the largest

  HoloNet provider on Alderaan, Tycho had been able to make a realtime HoloNet

  call to his home on the occasion of his birthday. Everyone had been there, all

  smiles and laughter. They had presents for him and toasted him with wine. Though

  thousands of light-years distant from the celebration, he felt every bit a part

  of it; then the transmission went down, the holographic images dissolving in a

  gray-black blizzard of

  static.

  Tycho had just smiled. Such interruptions had happened before and in each

  instance he had given his father a hard time about it. Throughout the next week

  he mulled over what he would say to his father. He had looked forward to the

  exchange, since matching wits with his father was a true joy in his life.

  Then word filtered down through the fleet that Alderaan

  had been destroyed. Blame had been placed on the Rebels, but he'd known

  instantly that they were innocent. While his Imperial indoctrination had left

  him no doubts that the Rebels would destroy a planet to gain their ends, he knew

  it would not be Alderaan. They drew support from Alderaan, according to the

  rumors, so destroying it would only make sense for the Empire. The fact that the

  Emperor dissolved the Imperial Senate before Alderaan died, instead of in

  reaction to its death, firmly focused blame as far as Tycho was concerned.

  So he defected. At the next planet, Commenor, he went on leave and never came

  back. He joined the Rebellion and for well over seven years had fought to

  guarantee no other world would face the fate of Alderaan. And guarantee no other

  man would have to decide how to memorialize the woman he had intended to share

  the rest of his life with.

  Part of what made the choice so difficult were the changes he had undergone

  since Alderaan's death. Had he made his Return immediately after leaving the

  Imperial Navy, he would have encoded a poem on a datacard and set it adrift in a

  device that would have broadcast it over and over again. The comfrequency

  traffic that his R2 unit scrolled across his main screen showed thousands of

  others had thought of the very same thing.

  It hurt deep down knowing that the man he had become would not have been a

  suitable match for Nyiestra. The life they had planned together would have been

  possible in a bygone age, but only if they refused to look at what the Empire

  was doing within the galaxy. Wrapped up in its cocoon of pacifism, Alderaan had

  seemed insulated from things going on in the galaxy. It was as if when we

  disarmed we set ourselves above and beyond the petty concerns of the galaxy,

  and we thought doing so would keep us safe.

  Bail Organa and his daughter, Leia, had seen the folly of that idea, but

  Alderaan had been slow to awaken to their call. Many people clung to their

  pacifism as if it would save them from anything the Empire could do. They had

  felt that the only way the Empire would win was if it could force them to

  abandon pacifism. Being sacrificed to preserve their beliefs

  was not too great a price to payan attitude especially easy to hold when no one

  believed the Empire could or would destroy a planet.

  Tycho had long since seen the error of that philosophy. Pacifism for the sake of

  pacifism is the height of arrogant selfishness when that belief prevents you

  from acting to save others from harm. While he had no more love for war than any

  other Alderaanian, he had chosen to go into the military to be in a position to

  influence and change the military. And when it became necessary to destroy it, I

  became a Rebel.

  In the Rebellion, he had seen and done things that Nyies-tra could not have

  understood. He knew she would have done all she could have to support him and

  comfort him and help him deal with everything, but the fundamental changes in

  him meant that they would no longer have been suited to each other. At the most

  basic level, he accepted as true a concept that Nyiestra would have resisted

  with every neuron in her brain There are some people who are so evil and

  capable of creating such misery, that killing them is the only way they can be

  dealt with. Grand Moff Tarkin, the Emperor, Darth Vader, Warlord Zsinj, Ysanne

  Isard, General Derricote, and Kirtan Loor were all beyond reasoned arguments

  designed to make them repent and abandon their evil ways.

  The same events and experiences that would have sundered him and Nyiestra bound

  him and Winter. In many ways, his relationship with her astounded him because it

  was so wholly different from the one he had enjoyed with Nyiestra. Whereas they

  had done everything they could to minimize their time apart, he and Winter

  simply sought to make the most they could of the time they had together. Both of

  them had duties that kept them occupied and apartand would continue to do so

  more often than not for the foreseeable futureyet the fact that each knew the

  other was out there somehow staunched what would otherwise have been a hideous

  emotional wound. He knew both of themand probably everyone else from Alderaan

  that had been left alonefeared getting too close to someone in anticipation of

  losing them again. Despite that fear, they had grown close and provided an

  incredible amount of support for each other.

  Ultimately, it had been Winter who suggested to him the perfect gift to

  memorialize Nyiestra, a woman she had never met or known.

  Tycho found and purchased a perfect crystal sphere onto which had been acid

  etched the continents of Alderaan. Into the heart of this idealized version of

  the world he had called his own, he had Nyiestra's hologram imbedded. From

  within the depths of the world she had loved, Nyiestra smiled out at him,

  forever preserved, unchanging, and beautiful.

  He keyed the comm unit and flicked on his IFF transponder. "I am Tycho Celchu,

  son of Alderaan, now orphan of the galaxy. I have come to this place of my birth

  to pay homage to who I was and those I knew. And those I loved and love still.

  It is my wish that when life abandons me, I am returned here to be among you, so

  that for eternity we may be together as we should have been in life."

  He punched a button on his console, opening and purging the storage compartment

  in the X-wing's belly. Under the control of the R2 unit, the memorial capsule's

  compressed air jets pushed it forward till it emerged from beneath the nose of

  the snubfighter. A lump rose to his throat as the black oval capsule slowly

  began its trip into the swirl o
f stone that once had been Alderaan.

  Tycho cleared his throat. "These gifts are but insufficient tokens of the love

  for you all that still burns within me." He hesitated for a second, then

  deviated from the formula he was supposed to speak to do his Return correctly.

  "This fighter is another. It bears the colors of the Alderaanian Guard and

  transmits their code. It is my pledge to younot of vengeance but of vigilance.

  I hope you rest well knowing you will rest alone, because it is my life's work

  to see to it that no one else suffers as you have. I won't rest until this quest

  is complete."

  He hit another button, closing the cargo compartment. The capsule continued

  drifting away, and he was tempted for a moment to blast it to bits with his

  lasers. He had no doubt that amid the debris, ships waited and searched for

  things to recover. The individuals who had located and brought in the Another

  Chance had been on a salvage mission of sorts, and

  countless were the stories of treasures rescued from the ruin of Alderaan.

  Many of those treasures were shown to be forgeries, created and planted by

  confidence tricksters to prey on the Alderaanian community. Even nastier than

  they were the people claimed to have been from Alderaanall rescued by miracle

  or coincidenceand who subsequently sought to insinuate themselves with families

  who had survived but had lost relatives. Because of the nature of the Imperial

  economy, a considerable portion of the wealth of Alderaan had survived the

  planet's destruction, making the survivors quite prosperous and, therefore,

  targets of opportunity for criminals.

  He watched the capsule until it vanished into the swirl of debris. "Rest easy. I

  miss you all." He punched up the power on his IFF beacon and pulsed its

  transmission out in one grand confirmation of his vow, then shut it down, turned

  the X-wing around, and started the long trek back to Yag'Dhul and the war

  against Ysanne Isard.

  12

  Fliry Vorru fought the sense of nakedness that his abbreviated clothing inspired

  in him and braced himself for Ysanne Isard's tirade. "Yes, the diversion of the

  convoy has been confirmed by a number of sources. It is not the utter disaster

  you have made it out to be since Antilles is not holding on to our tankers, but

  is returning them."

  "Returning them so we can refill them and he can take them again." Her