The Bacta War

by Michael A. Stackpole

  This better work. Corran chopped his throttle back to zero, then yanked his stick back to his breastbone. The X-wing’s nose came up and over, pointing straight back at the TIE. The TIE immediately shied to port, so Corran hit his left etheric rudder pedal and tracked the X-wing’s nose along the TIE’s flight path. The aiming reticle went from yellow to red, and Whistler screeched out a solid tone indicating target lock.

  Corran fired a missile.

  The proton torpedo rode a jet of blue flame as it streaked out after the TIE. It actually overshot its target when the TIE pilot rolled the fighter and pulled the starboard solar panel out of the torpedo’s range. The proximity sensors on the proton torpedo caused it to detonate, filling the area around it with a rapidly expanding cloud of shrapnel. Before the TIE pilot could react, tiny bits of metal pierced the transparisteel cockpit canopy, shattering it into a million razor-edged fragments, that proceeded to reduce everything in the cockpit to debris.

  Corran watched the TIE fighter begin to spin off lazily through space. When I go, I hope it’s that fast. No lingering for me.

  Whistler’s mournful tone seemed to echo that sentiment.

  “Nine here, I’m clear.”

  “Seven here, Nine. We’re all clear.”

  Corran brought his ship around and saw two of the freighters hanging in space with fires raging internally. “Order, sir?”

  Tycho replied quickly. “Wedge has convinced the convoy that once it makes delivery runs for us, it can go free. Form up with Ooryl, and take two tankers for your run. They’ll slave their navicomps to yours. Once the cargo has been delivered, let them go and get back to base.”

  “As ordered, sir.” Corran let a little chuckle roll from his throat. “Well, Whistler, this isn’t much of a blow to strike against Iceheart, but it’s something. I’ll take it as a down payment on what she’s going to get later.”

  Chapter Eleven

  A cloud of steam rolled toward Corran as the inner door of the thermal lock opened. He and Ooryl stepped through quickly, anxious to be well away from frigid conditions that existed back in the hangar. Corran pulled off his gloves, blew some warmth into his hands, then smiled as a small, balding man approached them. “You must be Farl Cort.”

  The smaller man nodded and extended a hand to Corran. “I am. I want to thank you for your mission here. When we put the word out, I had no reason to expect, you know, such a generous response so quickly.”

  “Pleased to meet you, sir.” Corran shook his hand, then jerked his head toward Ooryl. “This is Ooryl Qrygg of Gand, I’m Corran Horn of Corellia.”

  Farl shook Ooryl’s hand, then waved the both of them deeper into the rough-hewn stone tunnel. “You’ll forgive the lack of decoration and refinement, but Halanit is a fairly small community that is still building to self-sufficiency, so we have little time to devote to anything that is not utilitarian.”

  “Ooryl can understand this. You have chosen a difficult world to make your home.”

  Corran shook his head at the Gand’s understatement. Halanit was a moon orbiting a gas giant. A thick coat of ice covered the planet, but beneath the frozen crust, the hot heart of the world heated water and rock enough to make life sustainable. The colonists began creating their community during the final days of the Old Republic. They had weathered the Empire and Rebellion all but unnoticed since the planet produced nothing of use and the inhabitants numbered just over ten thousand. It was just one more curiosity in a galaxy full of them, and it would have escaped Corran’s notice except for an urgent message sent to Coruscant to request shipments of bacta.

  Farl led them from the tunnel to the edge of a huge chasm that reminded Corran of Coruscant’s artificial canyons. A hundred meters or so above them a double-walled transparisteel shield capped the chasm and spread over the area the diffuse light glowing down through the glacier. On both sides of the chasm lights shone through viewports carved in the stone and silhouetted the various bridges across the gulf. In several places, water streamed down between and over rocks to splash rather beautifully into the chasm’s depths.

  Corran raised an eyebrow. “This is a little more than simply utilitarian, I think.”

  Farl smiled. “This grand vista is the one concession we make to beauty. Standing here it is easy to see how our forefathers envisioned what Halanit would become. In two generations we have accomplished much, but we are far from our dream of making this world into a Utopia. And, as pretty as this is, it does 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 Oo
ryl. “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 Alderaan—to its Graveyard—before. 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 enjoyed—romantic 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 father—the 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 known 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 pay—an 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 Nyiestra 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 sun
dered 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 apart—and would continue to do so more often than not for the foreseeable future—yet 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 them—and probably everyone else from Alderaan that had been left alone—feared 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 of stone that once had been Alderaan.