by Chuck Wendig
At his table, a blinking light indicates an incoming message.
He hobbles over, sets it to play.
Leia’s face appears. It’s a recorded message, not live.
As she speaks, his blood goes cold. Then it goes hot.
“Captain Antilles. I’ve gone and done something foolish. I’ve jumped ahead to a meeting point just outside the Kashyyyk system. I’m in the Millennium Falcon and have Evaan Verlaine as my copilot. We will soon make our way into Kashyyyk orbit. If we are alone, I expect that the Empire will win the day and take me as a prisoner. A very important prisoner, and one that would represent a great loss to the New Republic. Unless, of course, someone might want to intervene? I could use some company out here, Captain. Care to join us?”
And then her face shimmers and is gone.
Oh, Leia, what are you doing?
His heart pounds in his chest like a pulse cannon.
Wedge throws on his coat and grabs his cane.
—
Every free moment she has, Sloane gives Adea the look. The one that says, this parade, this music, this noise and clamor—it’s all your fault. To her credit, Adea looks starkly chastened. As she should.
Meanwhile, Sloane is strapped in for this unpleasant ride. The Empire is no stranger to celebrations. Parades are a necessity to keep the populace docile. Yes, yes, citizens, eat your sweet treats and enjoy the show. But Imperial parades are restrained affairs. They put forth processions of officers and troopers. Bands play the known marches. Suitable, patriotic marches. Such celebrations are short and simple.
This, however, is a sloppy, egregious affair.
Right now, half-dressed acrobats are passing beneath Sloane’s balcony seat—they’re flipping and flopping about on poles, jumping back and forth from grav-bounce to grav-bounce, holographic streamers trailing behind. It is clownish and bizarre. Then, thrumming by on a hovering stage, comes a martial demonstration from the Mon Cala—admittedly impressive given that they are essentially an underwater race of squid people. Trailing after them is yet another band, this one playing the execrable ear-horror “music” of the Gabdorins.
Sitting to her right is the chancellor. Adea is to her left.
Her guards are present by the door—though the room is home to thrice as many New Republic soldiers.
“It’s something, isn’t it?” Mon Mothma says, and it occurs to Sloane—the woman really means it. She is earnest. Many politicians put forward false faces, and that rarely settles well with Sloane. But the chancellor’s…authenticity, for lack of a better word, also unsettles her.
“It is. Something.”
“Let’s talk for a moment. I want to lay it all on the table before the official talks begin, before we have a scribe-of-record and the messy work of figuring out the parameters of our treaty.”
I will lay it all out for you, Sloane thinks. I believe your way of life is naïve. I fear you will bring chaos to the galaxy. I think the only messy work here will be cleaning up the dung heap you’ve built by conjuring this terrible vacuum of power. We kept order. You will keep only disarray.
She speaks no such truth, of course.
Instead, Sloane simply says: “I would rather sit back and enjoy the show, if you don’t mind.” It’s a lie. It’s very difficult to enjoy Gabdorin music, which sounds not unlike a chorus of animals caught in various sharp-toothed traps struggling and failing to find freedom.
But the chancellor is persistent. “The show is part of it. The galaxy is a myriad, wonderful place. It is home to such wild miscellany. Present here is individuality. Something the Empire, I feel, has missed. If there is to be any kind of treaty, it is vital we preserve what makes life in this galaxy special. It is critical we preserve all of what you will see on display. All ways of existence. All the choices for all of us.”
“Oh, absolutely,” Sloane lies. Every molecule of her body is straining not to taunt the chancellor with the news that soon, an attack will be incoming, and all the ships in the Empire’s fleet will make short work of this world—and that the New Republic will fall to its knees. Individuality is a fine crusade if you’re an idiot. Joining the collective and supporting the greater good through Imperial control—that takes true grit and real wisdom. She cannot say those things, so, instead, she picks a different scab. “I don’t see your Alderaanian princess here.”
That scores a direct hit. The chancellor shifts uncomfortably in her seat. “Leia is ill today, I’m afraid.”
“A shame. I often feel that she and I were matched—by the fates, I mean—against each other. She and I, dueling across the holo-waves. I would have liked to have met her in person.”
“Yes. She is the voice and the face of the New Republic.”
“As I am of my Empire.”
Just then the door behind them opens. A man stands there with dark hair and a rust-red Republic flight suit. He leans on his cane and then looks to Sloane—it takes their eyes meeting to realize who she’s even looking at.
Wedge Antilles.
He’s the pilot she had laid out before her in the satrap’s palace on Akiva. The way he leans on his cane, she sees now that she truly broke him. An odd worm of guilt crawls through her heart. He was just a pawn in this game. She was, too, in a sense, and she regrets what happened to him.
The way he looks at her, he wishes his eyes were spears—each of them piercing clean through her chest. He doesn’t just want to kill her. He wants to end her. She doesn’t blame him. And at least that anger tells her that she helped break his body, but not his spirit.
Good for him. Fool though he may be for serving the Republic.
The chancellor excuses herself and hurries over to him. They speak in hushed tones. But the tension there is difficult to hide.
To Adea, Sloane whispers: “The chancellor appears rattled.”
“She does, a little.”
“Something that pilot said is upsetting her.”
Mothma throws her a glance, then pulls the pilot back outside the room. Adea says, “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“They may know something.”
“They couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re not smart enough,” Adea says.
Something about that sticks between Sloane’s teeth. Not smart enough. She prides herself on being smart. The smartest in the room. But a trickle of doubt begins to creep into her mind—
She has little time to ruminate upon it, though, because the chancellor comes back into the room. Mothma is now off kilter, though she’s straining not to show that to Sloane. “Apologies,” the chancellor says.
“Is everything all right?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”
—
Gallius Rax watches the events in Hanna City.
He has no special access. He doesn’t need it. The chancellor controls the HoloNet, now, and is broadcasting her Liberation Day across the waves.
It is quite the show. A demonstration from an arrogant bird: Look how pretty my tail feathers are.
The parade ends and slowly they clear the Senate Plaza. A stage is elevated from the stone—it rises not with any new technology but by men who dutifully crank old wooden handles, turning ancient stone gears. Chandrila is an old world. Modern tastes clash with a long history.
If they’re bringing out the stage, then soon it will be time to fill it.
Which means it is also time to orchestrate the plan. He summons Grand Moff Randd to his chamber.
“Sir,” Randd says, compliant and cold.
“Prepare the fleets to move on my command.” Rax hands over a datapad. “When I give the say-so, direct them to these coordinates. All of them. Coordinate with Borrum, too. We’ll need everyone on the ground there with everything we have. Everything.”
“But, sir, this isn’t—”
“I know. Just do it.”
“Does Sloane know?”
“She will. They all will. In fact, summon them. I wish to meet wit
h my Shadow Council.” He waves his hand. “Now go.”
In the meantime, Rax turns his attention back to the events in Hanna City. It is time to watch his opera unfold.
I’ve failed.
Those two words race each other in the front of Han Solo’s mind like a couple of podracers jockeying for position.
He came out here, leaving Leia and the New Republic, for one reason, and that was to do what nobody else wanted to do: save Kashyyyk. Leaving Leia behind like that was hell on him. But she understood. She knows what it is to have a cause bigger than yourself. If anybody gets it, Leia does.
I’ve failed.
Even as the gruff vice admiral commands stormtroopers to pick him up—which they do, handily—he plays through the list of failures. He trusted Imra, but she was bad news and he was too dumb to see it. The Empire snapped up Chewie, and Han got away. And then he was close, so close, to fixing it all: They fought their way across half a planet and took out Lozen Tolruck just in time for him to bomb the planet to splinters and mud. And, he reminds himself woefully, Wookiee blood.
It’s all my fault.
The others are in shackles now: the bounty hunter, the commando, the ex-Imperial, and once again and worst of all, his copilot, Chewie. They were a good team. They did right by him. They did right by Chewie.
All of them are shoved forward, pressed against the wall. Solo included. Behind him, the vice admiral steps up. His breath smells like rot. The man stinks of sweat. These Imperials have really let themselves go.
The vice admiral growls in his ear: “My name is Vice Admiral Domm Korgale. You should get to know that name, villain. I’m going to be the one to deliver you into the Empire’s embrace. You will make a most excellent bargaining chip at the table. You alone will buy me a seat.”
“Tooska chai mani,” Solo says—a Huttese curse that’s about the worst he can muster. Something about the man’s mother and a Tusken Raider chief. “Don’t you get it? You lost. You’re not the other side in a war, fella. You’re criminals.”
“Then as criminals, you won’t mind if I spare you but execute your friends? Here and now?” Korgale twirls his fingers in the air, and the stormtroopers press blaster barrels against the backs of the heads of those pressed against the wall.
“It’s been fun, everyone,” Sinjir says, cheek smashed against the wall.
Jom and Jas stay silent, struggling futilely against their captors.
Chewie rumbles a low growl.
“I know, pal. We tried.”
From across the room, one of the comm officers calls over: “Sir! We have an incoming ship dropping out of hyperspace—”
“What?” Korgale says. Then his voice lifts: “I asked for reinforcements. Perhaps now that Orlan is dead, they’ve listened.”
“It’s not one of ours. It’s a freighter. Old Corellian make—”
Han’s eyes jolt open. He looks to Chewie as she says the rest:
“A YT-1300.”
He mouths the words to his copilot: The Falcon?
But who the hell is piloting it? Wexley?
“The craft is hailing us,” the comm officer says.
“Put it through,” Korgale says, “but then launch a contingent of TIE fighters. We must take no chances.”
Over the comm comes a voice that lifts Han Solo’s heart the same time as it sinks it:
“This is Leia Organa of the New Republic. You will stand down your ships or you will be destroyed.”
Korgale’s paunch shudders as he offers one stiff laugh. “One craft? She thinks she can take down three Star Destroyers with one rattletrap freighter? Is she daft? Let the TIE fighters cut her to pieces. She’s not even a pilot. She’s a politician.”
Han grins ear-to-ear. “You’ve never seen a politician like this before.” But in the back of his mind, he can’t help but wonder:
How does she plan on doing this alone?
—
Evaan Verlaine gives her a look. No, not a look—but rather, that look. An all-too-familiar arched eyebrow and smug smirk and a gaze pregnant with the question: What have you gotten us into this time, Princess?
Leia isn’t quite sure. For a moment, she feels overexposed: a tooth without its enamel, a ship without its armor, like she alone is dangling out in space on a tether. Maybe this wasn’t a very good idea…
Dead ahead, the Dominion begins spitting TIE fighters into the black.
“Leia, we’re about to have company,” Evaan says. She doesn’t mean the TIE fighters. Sensors indicate incoming ships.
A dozen stars behind the Falcon zoom close—stars that aren’t stars at all. Ships. Starfighters. X-wings.
She actually flinches as they swoop down out of hyperspace and zip past the Falcon on all sides, their cannons flashing. A TIE fighter rockets forth going the other direction, fire belching from its top just before it implodes. Over Leia’s comms comes the voice of Wedge Antilles:
“This is PhantomLeader,” says Wedge Antilles. “Phantom Squadron’s got your back, General Organa. Let’s save the day and bring it home.”
—
Korgale sucks in a small intake of breath: a moment of weakness that Solo detects. A moment of fear. Han likes that moment.
He likes the moment that comes next even better.
Because Korgale snarls, “A dozen X-wings and a crippled freighter is all they’ve brought? We have three Star Destroyers. Call the Vitiator and the Neutralizer. Time to eliminate this cloud of flies before—”
Another ship comes into view.
What follows is the moment Solo truly enjoys, as the vice admiral makes a tiny little whimper sound. Like vermin caught in a trap.
The comms come alive with the sound of Admiral Ackbar’s voice: “This is New Republic Fleet Admiral Ackbar, commanding the Mon Cala cruiser Home One. Surrender or be destroyed.”
Korgale paces. Nostrils flaring. Cheeks puffing out. He speaks to no one but himself as he runs through the motions: “We…we can’t surrender. We must mount a vigorous defense. G5-623 is our world, and it’s still three ships against their one—”
Chewbacca is apparently done with it. All of it. The Wookiee roars, swinging his head around and connecting with the helmet of the stormtrooper holding the hairy beast against the wall. The trooper cries out and tumbles to the floor and the Wookiee kicks away from the wall, charging toward Korgale. The other stormtroopers turn, rifles up.
They’re gonna shoot Chewie.
Han gets underneath the trooper closest to him and slams the man up and forward—he careers into the next. Sinjir ducks and darts out with his foot, hooking it behind another Imperial’s knee and dropping him. Jom and Jas take out the last together, each crushing the trooper between them—when he falls, they stomp and kick until he’s still.
Chewie completes his trajectory.
He hits Korgale like a crashing ship.
The man bleats and falls. The Wookiee roars in triumph.
Outside, on the viewscreen, the X-wings swoop and pivot even as the Vitiator moves closer and the Neutralizer moves in beyond that. One of the Phantom Squadron ships is shredded by a trio of TIE fighters on its tail even as the Falcon cuts in and takes them out—a few seconds too late.
Solo knows that Korgale was right: They do have three Star Destroyers. The odds are still against them. It’s like a long game of sabacc. When the chips are down and you have squat for cards, what can you do?
You even the odds.
And the way Han likes to even the odds is by cheating.
Jas, panting, stands next to him, her hair plastered down on her thorny head-horns. “What’s our next move, Solo?”
“Won’t be long before we’ve got stormtroopers all over this bridge,” he says. “We need to take control of this bridge and lock it down, but first that means we gotta find a way to get these binders off—”
Chewie yawps, then bares his teeth as he wrenches his arms apart. The shackles snap like they were made of brittle candy instead of steel.
“That works,” Solo says.
Chewie moves to help Solo and the others with their cuffs. Jom says, “I got the door,” and then heads over to lock it down. Sinjir and Jas reapply the cuffs to the knocked-out stormtroopers. But one person is missing:
Korgale. He’s nowhere on the bridge. That pig wriggled away.
No time to worry about that now.
“Let’s figure out how to fly a Star Destroyer,” Solo says, clapping his hands. “Time to properly even the odds. And somebody get on that comm, make sure those X-wings don’t try to blow us up in the process!”
The battle rages for a time. Wedge’s Phantom Squadron—comprised of a scattered remnant of washouts, burnouts, and capable freaks—deftly cuts apart the swarms of TIE fighters, though they lose a few. The Falcon flies true and soon Leia feels like the ship is a part of her. There are even moments when she can feel the battle unfolding around her in space—invisibly, as if all of it is a warm stream in which she has dipped her hand. The Force, she knows, is guiding her. A little bit, at least.
Luke will be happy.
Eventually, the compromised Dominion begins firing on the others, and the Vitiator breaks in half in a sharp knife slash of light before the vacuum of space crushes what remains.
“Your deranged plan worked,” Evaan says, smirking.
“Then maybe it wasn’t so deranged.”
“Oh, no, it was full-bore moonbat, Princess. They always say it’s Han who has the good luck, but I’m starting to think it’s you.”
The Force was with me today, she thinks. But better yet, my friends were here. And in this galaxy, maybe that’s all one truly needs.
Ackbar’s voice fills the air: “The Vitiator is down and we are receiving a full surrender from the crew of the Neutralizer.”
“Well done, Admiral. And thanks for coming when I called.” Leia called him after she called Wedge. It was a gamble, of course; Ackbar could’ve stopped her. But he came. And because of that, she knows this will cost him. It will cost her, too, and Wedge as well. As it should. This happened outside politics. No vote made this happen. Nobody sanctioned putting these ships and these people at risk. Even Ackbar working with a skeleton crew on board his own ship and Wedge calling on a stable of forgotten pilots—many thought to be already out to pasture—won’t pass easy muster with Mon Mothma. But that is a problem for Future Leia. Right now, the Leia of the Present is very pleased with herself.