by Chuck Wendig
“The peace talks are coming up in a few days.”
“And the big celebration.”
“Right, right.” Wedge has been on special security detail for that event. The liberation of the captives of Kashyyyk was a boost in the arm when it came to morale. Some of those prisoners were high-ranking folks from the Rebel Alliance. Many were heroes and liberators in their own right, and freeing them—well, it was decided that such an event demanded a proper celebration.
Liberation Day, the Senate voted to call it. The chancellor’s idea.
And the peace talks will dovetail with that event. Wedge isn’t much of a politician, but even he can see the play there—peace talks with the Empire are viewed with a great deal of suspicion. He feels it, too. Imperial oppression has fomented a great deal of bad blood over the many years, and those in the New Republic aren’t necessarily keen to give the enemy room to move. Having Grand Admiral Sloane here only stirs up that blood—hell, just thinking of her name makes Wedge’s body ache with the memory of what they did to him there in the satrap’s palace on Akiva. That woman deserves no measure of compassion—no moment of kindness. Give her that moment and he believes she’ll use it to flash a knife and cut their throats.
Then again, he might be just a little bit prejudiced. Which is why he’s staying out of it. Either way, a big celebration like Liberation Day will go a long way to cool the hot blood over the peace talks.
“It’s been a while,” Norra says.
“Yeah. It has. Sorry about that. It’s just been—well, you know.”
“Everything’s hectic.”
“Everything’s moving fast right now. Lightspeed fast.”
Human emotions are basically a pack of tooka-cats chasing shadows, Wedge decides. He is happy that Norra has her husband. And yet…
And yet.
“So,” Norra asks. “What’s up? Everything okay?”
He dithers a bit before saying: “I don’t think it is.”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“It’s about Temmin, Norra.”
—
Clang, clang, clang.
Temmin knocks the last spring-bolt into place with the handle of the coil-driver, then flips it around and gives the skull one…last…twist.
It buzzes and clicks into place.
The red eyes flicker, then strobe, then stay lit.
Bones’s narrow, vulpine head looks left, looks right, then finally his eyes telescope and focus on Temmin.
“HELLO, MASTER TEMMIN.”
“Bones!” He grabs the droid and presses his forehead against the flat of the droid’s cold metal head. “Glad you’re back, buddy.”
“I AM GLAD TO HAVE NO ASTROMECH PARTS.”
“I know.”
“ASTROMECHS ARE MEDDLING, WEAK THINGS THAT REMIND ME OF TRASH RECEPTACLES OR REPOSITORIES FOR HUMAN WASTE FLUIDS. THEY ARE NEARLY AS USELESS AS PROTOCOL DROIDS, WHO SERVE NO FUNCTION AT ALL EXCEPT TO TALK, TALK, TALK, TALK, TALK, TALK—”
“Okay, okay.” Temmin laughs. “I get it, pull back on the flight stick, killer.” He makes a mental note: Tweak Bones’s personality matrix. Something must’ve gotten knocked around in there—the B1’s not usually this chatty. “How are you feeling?”
“I APPEAR TO HAVE BEEN MODIFIED AGAIN.”
“Yeah. Mostly just cosmetic.” The B1’s torso got dented in and torn up enough by those drones back on Kashyyyk that Temmin decided to lean into the skeletal look and just cut out those dents entirely. Now Bones’s torso looks more like a human rib cage. Albeit with more…spiky bits.
He thought about putting one of those droid arms onto Bones—those whipcord limbs were pretty primo. Sophisticated stuff.
His father said he could maybe help, but then…
“YOU SEEM STRUCK WITH A MOMENT OF GRIEF, MASTER TEMMIN. PLEASE IDENTIFY THE SOURCE OF THIS GRIEF AND I WILL TEAR IT APART AS IF IT WERE AN UNSUSPECTING BUG.”
“I’m good, Bones, I’m fine. Happy to have Dad home.”
“THAT’S NICE. BUT IT DOES NOT EXPLAIN THE UPSET YOU ARE DEMONSTRATING ON YOUR FACE. YOUR GRIEF AND WORRY HAVE BEEN ONGOING. EXPLAIN, PLEASE.”
What can he say?
Things were good. Brentin came home. Mom seemed happy. Temmin was happy. They did things together. They went to the zoo out on Sarini Island, watched the pangorins in their grottoes and the scuttling caw-crabs splashing about their enclosures and Dad laughed at the ooking uralangs. They ate dinner every night. Dad even cooked, trying to navigate his way through the strange Chandrilan herbs and spices. Mom and he stayed up late for the first several nights, laughing long into morning.
But then something changed…
Somewhere in the apartment, Temmin hears the sound—the clatter of utensils on a dish, the hum of the protein cycler, the splash of the spigots.
“Stay here, Bones,” Temmin says, then heads into the kitchen.
It’s his father.
That still amazes him. His father. Ripped from his life years ago—dragged out of the house in the middle of the night by Imperial forces. It should be amazing. And Temmin combats that thought by telling himself, It is amazing, you’re just too selfish to realize it.
But after those first couple of weeks, Dad hasn’t been the same. It’s like he’s not all there. He’s still Brentin Wexley. Still sometimes wears that winning smile. Still is good with tools. Still snaps his fingers like Temmin does when he’s thinking, and he’s fast with a joke now and again. But…
He usually walks with an easy, effortless lean. Like he doesn’t have a care in the world. And music—Dad always loved music. Temmin even went out to a junk shop (which are few and far between here on Chandrila, as the people view junk as junk and not as the treasure Temmin sees it can be) and brought home a small valachord. Dad poked the keys a few times.
Hasn’t touched it since.
The doctors and therapists said this was all normal. Nobody really knows what his mind went through. Far as Brentin Wexley recalls, it seems like he was in stasis for most of those years—held fast in those cradles and used to power the rest of the prison ship’s security protocols. Mom said that the chems they pumped into her made her feel anxious and afraid—and that was just after a few minutes.
Who knows what Dad went through having that cocktail churning through him for years? Might’ve been an endless nightmare.
Still. Dad’s back but he’s not…back.
And that sucks.
“Tem,” Dad says. “Hey, kiddo.”
“Dad. Hey.”
“You okay?”
“Fine. I just…I thought you were supposed to help me today.”
“Help you? I…” Then his face twists up like a wrung rag. “With the droid. Your B1. Right, yeah. I’m sorry, Tem. I’ve just been distracted.”
“Where were you?”
“I took a walk.”
He does that, now. He takes walks. Lots of them. Morning, midday, even in the middle of the night. The one therapist, Doctor Chavani, said that was normal, too. Said a lot of stuff might’ve built up in his mind over the years and this might be his way of shaking it out. Everyone assumed he was dead and now he’s not—he’s risen, effectively, from the grave like a glow-wight from the old Meteor Horror serials.
“I can take a walk with you sometime.”
“No,” Brentin says. “I think I like to be alone on those walks.”
“You think?”
“Everything’s not real clear right now, kiddo.”
“Oh. Okay. Yeah. You and Mom all right?”
“Sure.” But the way he says it, he knows they’re not. Temmin’s seen that for himself. There’s a distance there. And it’s growing wider.
And, he decides, it’s all Norra’s fault.
—
“He’s mad at me,” Norra says. She takes out her thermal carafe and pops the two disks out of the lid—disks that with a flick of her finger become two small telescoping cups. She and Wedge retired to a small table around the back of the shuttle hanga
r—a place where some of the pilots, techs, and mechs eat meals on the job. She pours him a cup of chava chava: a hot brew from the root of the same name. It’s no jaqhad leaf-chew, but it’ll do.
Wedge sighs. “I got that feeling.”
“We’re not really talking much now.”
“Why? Is it you and Brentin?”
“Me and Brentin are fine. We’re fine. Everything’s fine.” She hears the stiffness in her voice. It’s like she’s got this cough in her chest and she’s trying not to let it out but it tickles and scratches and hurts and—“Oh, damnit, it’s not fine! It’s not fine at all. Temmin’s right to be mad at me. His father comes home and he’s not present, like, in his eyes? He’s not there with us all the time. He’s somewhere else even when he’s sitting right across from me.”
“Most of the captives are like that a little bit. I heard they were anesthetized, but…they had nightmares.”
“That’s right. Brentin probably underwent years of nightmares. And so the way he’s acting is normal. It’s more than normal. I…I…it’s not his fault, and yet I can’t get close. It’s like he’s just not Brentin anymore.” And you’re just not Norra anymore, either. “I blame myself. He’ll get there. I have to be patient. I have to be nice and smile and just shut my fool mouth because he’ll get there.”
Wedge’s hand finds her own. Their fingers enmesh.
It’s warm and it’s comforting and—
She yanks it away.
“I’m married.”
“I know. I know! I didn’t mean—”
“I know you didn’t, I just mean—”
“Of course.”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” she says. It felt good and I want you to take my hand again and she grits her teeth while working to banish that thought. “Just—tell me what’s wrong with my son.”
“Nothing’s wrong. He’s actually scheduled to be on reserve for Liberation Day…”
“But?”
“But he’s missed too much training.”
She pinches her brow. “Which means he can’t actually be on deck.”
“Right.”
“He’s having a hard go of it right now. His father coming home has been all he’s ever wanted, but the reality of that is far less than the magic we all expected.” She takes a long pull of the chava. “I’ll tell him. About Liberation Day.”
“You’re sure? I can tell him.”
“He’s already mad at me. I might as well.”
“Thanks.”
They sit there for a while, each wreathed in steam from the cups. She says, finally, “Any word from Kashyyyk?”
“None.”
“It’s been a month, Wedge.”
“I know.”
“Leia must be losing her mind.”
“She is. Trust me, she is.”
—
The Eleutherian Plaza outside the Senate Building is abuzz with activity—all of it conducted by the masterful hand of Chancellor Mon Mothma and her advisers. She wields people like instruments, creating harmony and rhythm out of sheer noise. It is a thing to watch.
Unless, of course, you are one of her discarded instruments.
That is how Leia feels. But even if she is no longer contributing to the song…she can still bring noise, can’t she?
She strides up through the center of the plaza. She’s showing now. No way to hide it. No way to avoid the whispers, either—rumors of the child born of a smuggler and a princess, a smuggler who fled, a princess who stayed. Leia does not care about those whispers. She cannot.
As Mon directs Senate Guards, telling them where to stand—simultaneously fielding questions about the illuminations display that will fill the night sky after Liberation Day with an unparalleled show of lights and fire—Leia walks right up to stand in front of her. Forget protocol. Decorum is a thing of the past, a thing that Leia has buried deeply. Besides: Mon is a friend. Isn’t she?
“Leia,” Mon says. In that voice, Leia detects the competing emotions of warmth and irritation. The chancellor is pleased to see her while annoyed by her interruption. “As you can see, I’m a bit busy—”
“Yes, I’m busy, too. Busy worrying about my husband and his team and the entire world of Wookiees slowly being ground to dust in the crushing fist of the still-existent Empire. Mon, please.”
Leia has been driven ceaselessly to find a solution to this crisis ever since that day the Millennium Falcon landed here in Chandrila—and her husband failed to meet her. Norra and the others rescued prisoners, but Han stayed behind. Something he had to do, Norra said.
Her jaw clenches at that.
Leia tried marshaling the votes needed to send aid and troops to Kashyyyk, but of course the Senate is full of representatives whose own worlds need that aid and, sometimes, the military presence, too. The vote was close, but not close enough—the measure will not return until the next cycle, and by then it will be far too late.
After that, she tried interfacing with Admiral Ackbar directly—Ackbar agreed that it was time to do something about Kashyyyk, and together they pondered the options. He considered sending a small SpecForces team to the surface in order to help locate and assist Han’s team…
Mon Mothma blocked that effort. Like slamming down a giant wall of ice between Leia and her goal.
At the time, Mon said it would be “inexcusable” to stir mud into the water after Sloane came to them with the offer of peace talks. The galaxy, she said, was momentarily at peace—a tense, unpleasant peace, perhaps, but one where all was quiet on the galactic front. It was a much-needed respite from the weariness of war, and to make any formal, official incursion against Kashyyyk at this point could reawaken those troubles.
That, the chancellor made clear, was not an option.
And the Senate backed her up.
“Leia, please. If you give me a few hours—”
“Mon. Stop. Listen to me. I won’t negotiate on this.”
Mon leans in and whispers: “I understand you’re upset—”
“Understand this,” Leia says, her voice louder than a whisper. “You need me. I’m still the face of this Republic. Don’t make me walk away from that.”
Mon stiffens. “You’d really do that? You’d injure the New Republic over this?”
“I would burn down the whole galaxy if I thought it was right.”
Mon sighs and forces a smile. “I do know that.” The chancellor nods to everyone gathered. “Take a short break. I’ll be back.”
The chancellor secures Leia’s elbow and the two of them walk to the far side of the plaza. Nearby, a trio of whiskered vole-kites scurry about, searching for crumbs with scrabbling paws. Startled, the little animals take flight in a flurry of furry feathers.
“You have my attention,” Mon says. “I wish you’d found a nicer way to secure it, but here we are.”
“We are friends. Aren’t we?”
“I expect and hope we still are. I know this is about Kashyyyk and—believe me when I tell you, my hands here are tied. Things are different now. In the days of the Alliance, we did what we could—and sometimes that meant individuals making snap decisions for the whole. But this is no longer an insurgency. We aren’t in hiding. We don’t operate in cells or in ragtag bases strewn across the galaxy. All eyes are on us, all hands are joined. We are united, and in that unity we are beholden to the whole, to the machine of government, which is slow, yes, but effective—”
“Effective at what, exactly? Indolence? Concession?”
“Compromise.”
“Such cold logic and all while worlds die. What is our compromise on Kashyyyk? Because it seems to me there that no such compromise has manifested, not a compromise that the Wookiees would understand—”
Mon takes her hand and clasps it tight. “Kashyyyk is one world among the thousands we are trying to reach—and thousands more beyond that to come. Please see beyond your entanglements with Han and see that this is more than j
ust one man.”
“Yes, you’re right. It is! It is about millions of Wookiees—many of whom are already dead because nobody came to help them. Chewbacca is a friend and a protector. He is family. And I owe him just as Han owes him.” Awareness blooms inside her, fierce as a plume of fire. She understands why Han is out there. He’s not running away from her or from the child. He’s running toward something. That’s what Norra meant—he has something left to do. Something that can’t remain undone before he starts his own family.
“I’ve been thinking,” Mon says, “and what Han is doing may be the right way to go about it. On worlds where the Empire still holds sway—or where criminal syndicates fill that void—individual resistance movements may rise up and serve as small rebellions all their own. Just like what happened on Akiva. We cannot officially support them but we may be able to find ways through back channels to offer aid.”
Leia scoffs. “Back channels? That’s what we’ve earned?”
“As I told you before, I will also put this on the table with Admiral Sloane during our peace talks. I will ask that the liberation of Kashyyyk be a condition of peace—”
“You want to negotiate something that is non-negotiable,” Leia hisses. She holds up two hands, palms flat up. “Over here is the right thing, the good thing. On the other side is the wrong path. The evil path. We have long fought to be good. To be heroes! But now? You want to negotiate in this middle space. You want to dither about in the gray.”
“It’s not as simple as good and evil, Leia.”
“It is to me!—” Leia turns toward the door. “I’m not getting anywhere. I…have to go, Mon. I thought I could try, but I can see it’s futile.”
“Wait. Liberation Day is almost here. I need you by my side—the face of solidarity. Unity, as I said.”
“We have no unity on this. You will go at this alone.”
“It’s not me who’s alone, Leia.”
A twist of the blade. Leia attacks right back: