Lark’s voice came through the comm. “Target acquired. Firing now.”
Quell twisted in her harness, fighting against the pressure of acceleration, trying to peer back past the bulk of D6-L and the glow of her thrusters. She saw nothing. Heard nothing other than the rumble of her ship.
Her scanner flashed. Lark’s voice came through again: “Target destroyed. You’re clear.”
“One down.” Tensent this time, wryly amused. “Three hundred to go.”
“It’s target practice,” Quell answered. She sounded confident, for which she was grateful. She hadn’t been certain Wyl Lark would hit the mine in time. “I’m not asking you to clear the field. Just show me you can maneuver together and don’t get hit.”
“But if we leave any alive—” Chass na Chadic’s voice. “—they’ll come after us for revenge.”
Tensent laughed. Quell wasn’t sure who Chadic’s sarcasm was directed at—maybe it meant something to Lark—but she chose to ignore it.
Together they ran through one drill after another. They dived toward the minefield in flights of two and three, drawing the mines away and detonating them safely. It was their fourth training mission together, and after three dissatisfying excursions spent on basic maneuvers, Quell was pleased to see that the element of danger focused her pilots’ attention.
The problems she’d witnessed over the past week, however, remained problems. Assigning five different starfighters to five pilots who’d barely met was a dangerous way to build a squadron. Maybe a foolish one. Whenever the ships broke formation they risked colliding, thanks to wildly different speeds and turning radii. The pilots couldn’t count on one another’s capabilities because they didn’t understand what their squadron mates were capable of. The 204th had been capable of astonishing feats because its pilots acted in union, but this…?
Still, Adan had made it clear that there were no other starfighters available—that they would make do with what they had. Quell had agreed.
She didn’t have other options. All she could do was apply her discipline to a new purpose, in service of a new master.
She made notes as the exercise continued. Chass na Chadic was a tremendous flier and a poor communicator. Wyl Lark’s gunnery was decent enough but he maneuvered with a grace Quell had rarely seen. Nath Tensent, to her surprise, fell into an easy routine with the others, reflexively coordinating attack patterns and flight vectors. Kairos flew without excess motion or wasted shots.
Quell was nearly ready to end the exercise and return to the Lodestar when Tensent, moving to chase a mine pulled by Kairos, cursed over the comm and called, “Second mark on my six—must’ve flown too close.”
Quell checked her scanner and saw it: another mine in motion behind Tensent’s ship. His Y-wing didn’t have the thruster power to escape. Kairos had a mine of her own in pursuit and Chadic was too far away to do any good. Lark and Tensent were both on the comm now, and Quell cut them off as she spun her fighter about. “Tensent, forget Kairos—I’ll hit the first mine. Maintain course, double-aft shields!” She doubted shields would do much good against a smart mine, but there was no reason not to try. “Lark, grab the second ball!”
Lark replied—something confused—and Quell saw a distant flash of light. Not an explosion, but the glimmers of cannon fire. “The mine behind Tensent,” she shouted into the comm. “Draw it away with your ship!”
Her body seemed to vibrate as the X-wing screamed toward Kairos. The ache in her shoulder, nearly forgotten that day, returned. She spotted the U-wing and the trailing metal sphere and counted heartbeats as her targeting computer obtained a lock.
Lark was calling, “Who’s shooting?” as Quell squeezed her trigger. Her cannons crackled. The mine—the first mine—burst brilliantly, filling her viewport with white light. Chadic was saying something as well, and Quell spared her scanner a glance.
Six marks. Four allied starships. Two mines left, not one. Quell pieced it together, swinging toward Lark’s A-wing: He had drawn off the mine from Tensent as Chadic had tried to detonate it. Instead of saving Tensent, she’d activated a third mine by sending stray shots into the minefield. Now Lark had two in pursuit.
An A-wing was fast. Maybe fast enough to escape, but doing so would leave two mines live.
“Lark!” Quell called. “Pull them into Chadic’s field of fire! Chadic—”
“I’ll try not to hit him.”
Quell watched it play out on the scanner. She accelerated toward Lark, but she knew she’d never reach him in time. He lost speed as he maneuvered toward Chadic, the mines moving from his stern to his port side. By the time he entered the B-wing’s firing range, the closest mine couldn’t have been more than a dozen meters away.
The flash that followed seemed insignificant against the starfield. The atomizing destructive force could have devastated a city block.
“Lark! Chadic! Report, now!”
Chass na Chadic’s voice was the first one through. “Scratch two. Wyl’s in one piece, but only because half of him got vaporized.”
* * *
—
Wyl Lark was alive. His ship could be repaired. That was the extent of the good news.
There was enough blame to go around such that Quell didn’t waste time chastising her pilots upon their return to the Lodestar. After they’d finished cutting Lark’s cockpit open with a laser torch—pulling him out intact and uninjured—she’d snapped something unproductive at Tensent and Chadic and sent them on their way.
She would review the flight recordings later. She knew what to expect: She’d hear her own voice shouting panicky and ambiguous orders before she’d gone silent to hunt the first mine. She’d find that Lark and Chadic’s actions were reasonable on their own but poorly coordinated. All she wondered was whether Kairos had bothered acting at all.
So much for bringing the discipline of the 204th to a squadron of her own.
“You want to tell me what did this?”
The speaker stood beside Quell as they watched Lark’s fighter rise off the hangar deck in the grip of a loadlifter. One of the ship’s thruster nacelles was blackened and half shattered. Quell assessed the ship first, then the white-haired woman in a scorched and stained jumpsuit.
“Smart mine,” Quell said. “Does it matter?”
“Tells me you got outwitted by a piece of machinery,” the woman said, “which probably means I’ve got more repairs coming.”
In the 204th, Quell thought, you’d have been docked a week’s pay for talking back to a squadron commander. She wondered if the disrespect was typical for a rebel, or aimed at her specifically.
“How soon will the ship be up and running?”
The woman rubbed her face in both hands. Tattoos covered her flesh—elaborate, colorful whorls surrounding dancing figures and strange pictograms—and she seemed to try to wipe them away. “How many A-wings do you think we’ve got aboard the Lodestar?” the woman asked.
You’re not answering me, Quell wanted to say.
“One,” Quell said. “The Lodestar’s shipboard squadrons are T-65B X-wings and BTL-A4 Y’s.”
“Good. You’re paying attention. So how fast do you think I can get the parts? Not just for the A-wing, either, but for the whole High Galactic alphabet’s worth of ships you brought—”
“I understand the challenge,” Quell said. She heard the tension in her voice and deliberately eased it. “But this is the squadron we’ve got, and I need you and your crew to support us, same as any other. Sergeant…”
The woman folded her arms across her chest, waiting. Quell met her gaze. “Ragnell,” the woman finally said.
“Sergeant Ragnell. I almost lost one of my people on a training exercise today and I’m meeting my commander in half an hour. I would really like a win right now.”
Ragnell gru
nted and craned her neck to watch the loadlifter reposition the damaged ship.
“Four days,” Ragnell said. “But I’m warning you: Try not to break more than one ship at a time, or you’ll end up grounded longer than that.”
Four days.
The words scarred Quell’s brain, and she hadn’t shaken her frustration by the time she was sitting with Adan in a two-person meeting room explaining her progress and setbacks with the squadron. Adan appeared distracted, barely speaking, his antenna-stalks raised. Quell wasn’t sure what his inattention meant until he cut her off with a wave of his hand and said, “General Syndulla is striking at Berchest, maybe as soon as tomorrow. I’d like to capture one of the Imperial yachts there—see if there’s useful data aboard.”
Quell shook her head slowly, not understanding. Had he been ignoring her entirely? “We won’t be ready,” she said. “Lark’s A-wing won’t even be repaired. I don’t know how long we’ll be—maybe another week, but I can’t take these people into a combat zone.”
Adan’s lips twitched, but he didn’t seem surprised or even alarmed. “That’s about what General Syndulla said, too. I was hoping you would give me a counterargument.”
“She heard about the minefield?”
“She did. She says no more flight time until you’ve—I quote—got your act together. Simulators only. So I ask you again: Do you have a counterargument?”
“No,” Quell said. It hurt her chest to say it, yet she was responsible for her squadron. She wouldn’t bow to pressure. “They’re good pilots, but they’re not ready for combat.”
Adan’s antenna-stalks seemed to stiffen, then slowly retracted into his dark mass of hair. He nodded and stood. “Then make them ready. And in the meantime, double down on the tactical analysis—we may as well get some work done.”
* * *
—
“How much time have you spent with your pilots off duty?” the torture droid asked. It floated above the table that filled most of the cramped meeting room, looking like some sort of dreadful centerpiece.
“Not much,” Quell said. “Lark and Chadic summarized their service histories for me, but otherwise I’ve been focused on training, research, and operations.”
She didn’t mention the tasks she’d postponed: studying New Republic data on Pandem Nai; reviewing sector charts; evaluating her X-wing’s specs and her droid’s capabilities. The only reason she’d made time to speak to the IT-O unit was because it had promised to review her team’s personnel records with her.
“Lark and Chadic,” the droid said. “Not Wyl and Chass.”
“No.”
“Did you fraternize with your squadron in the 204th?”
“Are we here to talk about them, or me?”
“I’d prefer to talk about the intersection between you and your people,” the droid said. It dilated the red lens of its photoreceptor as Quell scowled. “But we can move on to that later.”
“What do I need to know?” she asked.
The droid retreated half a meter and emitted a high-pitched whine as one device—a sonic pain inducer—retracted, only to be replaced by a miniature holoprojector. A burst of light signaled the creation of a rapidly changing hologram: a figure of Nath Tensent became a profile of Wyl Lark; the profile became a video of Chass na Chadic; Chadic’s laughter vanished, replaced by the visor of Kairos.
“Four pilots, each with considerable combat experience. Each highly motivated to locate and neutralize the 204th Imperial Fighter Wing. They share virtually no training or pre-military history. They are effectively strangers to one another.”
“What do I need to know,” Quell repeated, “that I don’t know already.”
“You need to know,” the droid said, “what they do share in common.”
Quell waited. The droid froze the holodisplay on the image of Wyl Lark. “Nineteen years old. Homesick. A self-described warrior of exceedingly gentle temperament. Sole survivor of his squadron.”
From Lark to Chadic, then. The droid continued: “Listed age is inconsistent, ranging from twenty to twenty-five. Homeworld unknown.”
Rim rat, Quell thought, then felt a reflexive remorse. She’d learned the slur in the Empire, but she’d met plenty on Gavana Orbital growing up: humans and nonhumans born on the fringes of civilization, without the trail of personal data Imperial citizens relied upon to obtain employment, services, and transport.
“Considers herself Theelin, but family history is unknown. Sole survivor of her squadron for the second time,” the droid finished.
Quell wondered what the first time was and made a note to check the records. “Keep going,” she said.
From Chadic to Tensent. “Tensent you know. Thirty-seven years old. Attempted to retire rather than continue fighting without his comrades. Untrustworthy by his own admission. Sole survivor of his squadron.”
The hologram rotated through the images again. “Four pilots,” it said, “facing substantial psychological obstacles and personal tragedies that will affect their performance. I cannot breach confidentiality, but I can tell you—”
“What about Kairos?” Quell asked.
“Kairos,” the droid said, “has her own challenges. They are classified.”
Quell let out a long, hissing exhalation. Of course they are. “Can you at least tell me her species? It might matter, depending on the mission. If she’s injured—”
“I can say nothing. She understands the risks.”
Quell nodded slowly and let the topic drop.
“I’m not blind,” she said. “I know they’ve got scars. But they’ll learn to fly together.”
“And what about your final pilot?” the torture droid asked. The hologram flashed, and Quell looked into a face she almost didn’t recognize: her face, gaunt and battered and scraped. An image from when the New Republic had found her on Nacronis.
She snorted to cover her sudden discomfort. The droid didn’t speak. She chose to play along. “Lieutenant Yrica Quell,” she said. “Self-confessed traitor. Sole survivor of her squadron. Highly motivated to locate and neutralize the 204th Imperial Fighter Wing.”
“Trustworthy?”
“As much as anyone.”
“What made her into a traitor?”
“The death of the Galactic Emperor and the instigation of Operation Cinder.”
“Why?”
“Because when innocents die in war, there should be a point to it.” The words leapt from her lips like spittle. She hadn’t paused between replies and she didn’t pause now. “Because if you can’t even begin to explain what good you’re doing by fighting, you’re fighting on the wrong side.”
The humming of the droid’s repulsors rose in pitch, softer and softer until they became the nearly inaudible whine of an insect.
“Have you given any further thought,” the droid asked, “to why the Emperor ordered Operation Cinder?”
“We’re done,” she said, and rose from her seat on trembling legs. “We’re done, unless—”
“Yrica.” The hologram flashed away. Quell blinked the light from her eyes. “Please sit.”
“Why?”
When the droid answered, its tone had changed, altering from bass and hollow to something gentler. “I’m not your friend. But I am concerned for your well-being and I have committed to helping if at all possible.”
It paused, then finished:
“I understand what it means to change.”
She peered into the red light of its photoreceptor. For a moment, she almost believed the machine.
She almost believed an Imperial torture droid.
“What happens if I walk out?” she asked.
“Caern Adan will promptly demand that you attend regular therapy sessions or be removed from the working group.”
“We’ll talk about anything you like, then.”
She meant it. She would talk about the Emperor and Operation Cinder. She would talk about her parents and her first girlfriend. Her last boyfriend. Her squadron. Anything else the IT-O unit needed to believe she was fit.
But she didn’t trust her promotion to squadron commander. She didn’t trust Caern Adan’s reasoning. And she certainly didn’t trust Adan’s personal torture droid.
III
Colonel Shakara Nuress sat in the copilot’s seat of a Zeta-class cargo shuttle, watching the sprawling settlement of Induchron fall away beneath her. Induchron was an ugly little outpost, all squat warehouses and processing facilities; prefab housing units and rusting schools embedded in a dun-colored, gravelly plain. The locals doubtless viewed it as a grand metropolis, and Shakara didn’t begrudge them their pride.
But she was ready to be gone. She was feeling like less of a warrior by the day, and she wanted to be among her people again.
“To Orbital One, Colonel?” the pilot asked.
“Yes. The long route today, I think.”
“Colonel?” The pilot furrowed his brow.
Shakara withheld her impatience, plotting a course on the console instead. “Primary ascent at these coordinates. Take us into the exosphere and descend again—” She jutted her finger at the display. “—here, before proceeding to Orbital One. Understood?”
“Of course, Colonel.”
She leaned into the torn leather of her chair and sighed. It was her own fault. She’d chosen Ensign Casas as her pilot not in spite of his unexceptional record but because of it—because he’d been stationed on Pandem Nai for two years now and, if someone had to fly her about for appearances’ sake, she’d rather waste the time of a well-meaning errand boy than one of the veterans of the 204th.
At least he hadn’t called her Grandmother. How she hated that nickname. Hated the reminder that she was old. Hated worse the reminder that somewhere along the line she’d gotten soft.
Alphabet Squadron (Star Wars) Page 19