Shadow Fall (Star Wars)

by Alexander Freed

  “Yes, Colonel,” the voice replied. “Lieutenant Bragheer is with me. The programs have been loaded.”

  “I’m pleased.” Soran had chosen Seedia for the mission out of inspired boldness; he had chosen Bragheer as a counterweight. Seedia was new to him, a brilliant and dangerous pilot who had the potential for greatness with proper tutelage; Bragheer was a mainstay of the 204th and utterly reliable. They would serve well as a pair. “Await my arrival.”

  The lift doors opened, and he trotted along corridors lit by emergency lamps. He wondered for a moment whether his plan was the right one.

  If the calculations they’d received were accurate, an asteroid was whipping toward Troithe even now, unnoticed by the New Republic battle group. That asteroid had room enough to house the 204th’s entire fighter complement—it could have permitted the wing to strike at Troithe from hiding, giving no time for alarms to be sounded or shields to be raised.

  He’d developed an entire strategy around asteroid CER952B. It had been a good plan. But it had left too much to uncertainty, and it was a plan for a commander more dedicated to the fallen Empire than to his unit.

  Soran Keize hadn’t come to Cerberon to reclaim it for the Galactic Emperor or for Admiral Sloane’s fleet or out of some concept of ideological purity. He would plant no flags. He had come to strike a fatal blow to General Hera Syndulla, and to give Shadow Wing the victory its pilots so dearly needed.

  CHAPTER 10

  STARFIGHTERS LIKE MOTES OF DUST

  I

  Quell stood frozen as the hangar, no longer empty, was flooded by a stream of pilots racing to their starfighters; engineers disconnecting cables; astromechs loading into X-wings. The sirens still screamed, though the piercing sound had been dulled by repetition.

  Lark had run to intercept one of the Meteor Squadron pilots. Chadic stood in front of Quell, playing guard as if oblivious to the chaos around them. Quell’s blaster still lay on the floor, abandoned. Quell wondered what the two of them looked like to everyone running about, silent and motionless as they were.

  Tensent was several meters away, crouched in front of T5 and cupping his ear to hear his battered astromech’s whistles. Presently he cursed, spat on the deck, and turned to Quell and Chadic. “Two Imperial ships just entered Cerberon space,” he said. “Star Destroyer and a cruiser-carrier.”

  “Blast,” Chadic muttered. She didn’t turn away from Quell.

  Quell grasped at the tactical situation through the fog in her mind, as if doing so could distract her from the horror caressing her soul. Her thoughts were slow and confused, but one by one she envisioned the dots of warships and fighters on a system chart. Even with Vanguard Squadron and Syndulla’s detachment gone, the New Republic had the advantage in a defensive battle.

  “We can hold Troithe,” Quell said.

  Lark returned to the group, eyes showing an alarm that his expression concealed. “Two ships,” he said, “a Star Destroyer and—”

  “Old news!” Chadic snapped.

  T5 chirruped over the sirens again. Tensent translated, “Star Destroyer just launched a TIE squadron. TIEs are escorting the cruiser-carrier, heading for Catadra. Destroyer’s coming our way.”

  Quell stumbled toward shadows in the fog, attempting to register what she was hearing and update her mental map. Her brain spat an error message: It’s over. You should’ve stayed at Traitor’s Remorse.

  “They’ll hit Catadra hard,” she said. “But even a Star Destroyer won’t get through Troithe’s shields.”

  “Shut up,” Chadic said.

  Lark glanced toward the hangar doors and the invisible magnetic field as the first X-wing roared free, its thrusters filling the chamber with the scent of burnt fuel. “We need to get out there,” he said. “If she’s—Catadra’s exposed. Imagine the damage those TIEs could do on a bombing run.”

  “She stays,” Chadic said. Her boot heel stomped on the blaster, pulling it skittering away from Quell.

  “Agreed,” Lark replied. “That brings us to three, though, so we’ll defer to Meteor Squadron for command.”

  “Fair enough.” Tensent gestured at the astromech, which began rolling toward his Y-wing. He hesitated a moment, then followed at a trot.

  “I can help,” Quell said. She didn’t know why. Maybe she wasn’t ready to see her squadron die without her. Maybe after Kairos that possibility seemed real.

  Chadic wrinkled her nose and showed teeth. “I will shoot your skull hollow before I fly with you again.”

  Lark winced. Another starfighter exited the hangar, its wash rippling his hair. “You can’t fly,” he said. “You’d only be a distraction.”

  He stared at Quell until she reluctantly nodded. Then he placed a hand on Chadic’s shoulder to guide her away. “She won’t go anywhere,” he murmured to the Theelin. “We’ll finish when we get back.”

  Chadic swore softly but followed Lark across the deck.

  Quell didn’t move, didn’t even think, as the last Meteor Squadron starfighters exited the hangar. A-, Y-, and B-wing went next. She felt the wake of hot air and blinked toxic particles from her eyes. Soon she could see straight across the nearly empty bay, over a floor littered with cabling and ladders and diagnostic tools. Her eyes fixed on the lone starfighter remaining: an X-wing with the crest of Alphabet Squadron painted on its nose. It was the second ship she’d flown with that design, after the first had gone down with D6-L.

  D6 also hadn’t known about her crimes. She felt its memory chip on her breast.

  She saw the round dome of CB-9 protruding from the top of her X-wing. She took long strides, moving as if on a conveyor beyond her control, and was beside the vessel in moments. “Open the canopy,” she ordered. “They need us out there.”

  The astromech buzzed.

  “There’s a Star Destroyer headed this way.” She heard impatience in her voice and tamped it down. “The Lodestar is undercrewed and most of its defenders are heading to Catadra. This ship could use the extra help—even one fighter could make a difference.”

  The droid buzzed again, low and angry like a locked door or a computer socket rejecting an incompatible plug.

  Quell slammed her palm against the side of her starfighter. “Open it!”

  The droid did not open the cockpit.

  She put her back against the vessel, watching the lights of Meteor and Alphabet Squadron recede into the distance, away from the Lodestar and off to war.

  II

  Alphabet Squadron—what remained of Alphabet Squadron—flew in a three-fighter wedge with Wyl Lark at the spearpoint, pursuing Meteor Squadron en route to Catadra. Wyl could’ve easily caught up with the X-wings, but he would’ve needed to leave Nath and Chass behind.

  “Deceleration in four minutes, ten seconds,” Meteor Leader called through the comm. “If the droids are right, we’ll enter Catadra space about thirty seconds before that cruiser-carrier shows up. It’ll give us time to arrive and form up, but there’s not much room for error.”

  “Copy that,” Wyl said. “Has the carrier deployed its TIEs yet?”

  “Just that escort from the Star Destroyer right now. Not a lot of weapons aboard a Quasar Fire-class carrier, either.”

  “This attack could be a distraction,” Tensent offered. “TIEs hit civilian targets on Catadra while that Star Destroyer tries to crack Troithe.”

  Wyl knew the next voice well—Meteor Four, a Rodian named Neihero he’d enjoyed a hallway flirtation with for the past month. “One Star Destroyer won’t do much against Troithe’s shields. More likely to get torn apart by the orbital defenses.”

  “You’re all in the running for admiral, all right?” Meteor Leader again. “Cut the chatter, though, or go to private channels. Lodestar knows what it’s doing, and we’ve got a fight ahead.”

  The comm emitted the soft h
iss of a dead frequency. Wyl adjusted his helmet—he’d been too rushed and distracted to switch to a proper flight suit, which meant he couldn’t form an airtight seal and he’d be in trouble if he ran into oxygen problems—and tried to shut the image of Yrica Quell standing dead-eyed and defiant out of his mind.

  Why hadn’t she spoken up for herself? Why not confess her guilt or apologize for the lies? She’d simply stood there: the woman who’d destroyed Nacronis and led Alphabet against her former comrades.

  Wyl had half hoped to hear her growl and rant and defend all she’d done as necessary for the preservation of order in the galaxy. That would’ve made things clearer. Or if not, if she could’ve asked for forgiveness—

  No, he thought. He didn’t know if he could offer that.

  He’d never longed to be Home more badly.

  He busied himself with procedure. He checked A-wing subsystems he should’ve checked before departure; linked targeting systems with Chass and Nath in case they made a joint run against the cruiser-carrier; adjusted power distribution between thrusters and deflectors and weapons and thrusters once again. He should’ve been thinking tactically, assessing ways that Alphabet could assist Meteor in the defense of Catadra, but there was too much going on. He wasn’t in command anyway.

  The Deep Core sky blazed above and around him. The dimmer streak of the debris field swept across darkness on his port side, a river whorl with its ultimate terminus inside the burning eye of the black hole. Wyl shifted in his harness, leaning forward and craning his neck so that he saw nothing of his console or the canopy frame. The infinite expanse of space calmed him. Eventually, however, his back grew stiff and he fell back into his seat.

  Meteor Squadron began decelerating as it approached Catadra. Wyl waited forty seconds, closing a portion of the distance between Alphabet and Meteor before signaling his comrades to do the same. They were two minutes out from Catadran orbit when his comm activated again.

  “Wyl Lark?”

  The transmission was badly distorted, full of digital stuttering and static. Wyl couldn’t determine whether the voice was male or female, let alone if he knew the speaker. The A-wing’s computer failed to identify a source, but it wasn’t a general broadcast—someone was wide-beaming a signal using Wyl’s transponder codes.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Wyl Lark,” the comm said again. “We’ve met before. We spoke in the Oridol Cluster, and again over Pandem Nai. You understand?”

  He did understand, and suddenly the galaxy seemed to compress around him.

  He was speaking to Blink.

  “I understand. What’s going on?” What is this?

  “I don’t have much time. You need to turn around and get back to Troithe. Do you hear me?”

  If Blink was communicating with him, that meant Shadow Wing was in Cerberon. It suggested that the cruiser-carrier powering toward Catadra was the same cruiser-carrier he’d encountered in Oridol. It meant Blink had received his messages, had heard his secret confessions—

  You never sent those messages.

  None of it made sense.

  “I hear you—” he began, and then a shock of pops and stutters erupted from his speakers. He recognized the familiar static of a jamming signal but looked to his console to confirm. His scanner showed a flickering field of a hundred marks, and his comm rig was flooded across the full frequency spectrum. He surveyed the darkness, saw the stars and debris and the black hole; saw the faint tails of Meteor Squadron approaching the bright thumbnail orb of Catadra. Nothing about the battlefield had changed, so far as he could tell—there was no hidden fleet sweeping into view.

  It was likely the Star Destroyer was sending the jamming signal, then—the cruiser-carrier wouldn’t have the power to blanket so much of the system, but the massive battleship might. For whatever reason (Is it just because of Blink?), the Empire had chosen to isolate and silence Catadra and Troithe—the Imperial and New Republic forces would fight over the two worlds in parallel, each set of combatants unable to contact comrades elsewhere.

  Wyl adjusted his comm settings. “Lark to all New Republic ships: Shadow Wing is here. Repeat, Shadow Wing is here. The enemy is the 204th Imperial Fighter Wing.” He had no illusions that the transmission would break through.

  Blink had told him to return to Troithe. Wyl didn’t know why—couldn’t know whether it indicated a respect born at Pandem Nai for Wyl personally, a desire to avert a disaster, an intention to defect, or something more foul. He imagined the outcomes, tried to remember the details of his prior exchange with Blink and what he knew about the pilot.

  Maybe it didn’t matter if all his instincts told him to do something foolish. Meteor Squadron didn’t need him. Troithe might.

  The Alphabet fighters had fallen out of computer-assisted formation when the jamming signal had severed their link. As Wyl put pressure on a rudder pedal and swung his ship around, he made a wide arc and lit his thrusters as bright as he could. The pressure crushed him against his seat, but with a lot of luck Nath and Chass would see him against the dark—recognize that he was returning to Troithe and follow.

  Wyl didn’t believe in luck, but if such a thing existed? He was surely due his share.

  III

  Chass na Chadic felt sick.

  Her mouth was dry, moistened only by the occasional surge of bile. She’d managed to grab an emergency flight suit but it was too loose and her whole body was covered in goosebumps from the cockpit’s aggressive cooling systems. Her head throbbed. She hadn’t slept more than forty minutes in the past day.

  Then there was Yrica Quell, the woman who’d betrayed her.

  Chass should’ve expected it would happen sometime, somehow—Quell had never really given her a reason to trust. So Chass had let herself be won over by the fact that Quell obviously liked her, ignoring all the warning signs and never questioning whether someday payment would come due.

  She’d slept in the woman’s bunk and this is what she got.

  Chass wasn’t drunk anymore. But as she sat in her cockpit breathing through her teeth and wincing at every jolt, she doubted she was fit to fly.

  The jamming signal hit as she decelerated toward Catadra. She muted the static screech and squinted at the chaos on her scanner. She was tempted to find something to cover the garbled and irritatingly bright screen, but she knew the difference between stupid and stupid. While her head was down something flashed in the distance outside the canopy bubble, but whatever it was was gone by the time she looked—possibly the first volley of weapons fire, more likely some Cerberon debris floating past.

  “How long till cruiser-carrier intercept?” she mumbled. “Ninety seconds, sir. Get ready to attack!”

  Who needed a comm signal to know what Meteor Squadron would’ve been saying?

  She went halfheartedly digging for her music chips, wondering if there was anything in her repertoire that wouldn’t make her feel sicker, and spotted a warning indicator. She furrowed her brow and confirmed the problem with the computer. How’d I end up low on fuel?

  But she knew the answer and she began laughing softly. She’d returned from her jaunt to Winker’s barely four hours earlier and had drained the B-wing’s reserves flying around the Cerberon system and back. She vaguely recalled a conversation in which she’d promised half her fuel supplies to pay off a bet, though that might have been a figment of her imagination. Either way, it didn’t surprise her that the understaffed ground crew hadn’t topped her off yet.

  It was just like being in the Rebellion again instead of the New Republic.

  Chass smiled crookedly, wearily, and flew on. She had enough fuel to make it to Catadra and she had enough weapons to take down a cruiser-carrier. She could win the whole battle herself if she had to.

  IV

  Quell strolled through the Lodestar, past crew mem
bers hurrying to battle stations and droids locking down maintenance panels, feeling the shudder of the battleship as its engines surged in power and its thrusters maneuvered the vessel over Troithe. No one had come to arrest her. No one seemed to notice her. Those who’d learned of her betrayal first had already written her off as another Imperial prisoner. Others, she assumed, had yet to be informed.

  For the moment, she still had skills to offer. For reasons she couldn’t fully understand, she wanted to do her part in the battle.

  When she reached the bridge, she stepped out of the lift and out of the way, observing from beside one of the rear vehicular deployment stations (unused, she suspected, since the Clone Wars). The crew chatter was almost deafening, loose and undisciplined to her sensibilities, and the narrow lanes and control pits were crowded with junior officers. When she sought information from the main displays, she found only blank tactical maps and images of Troithe. It wasn’t until she saw a young ensign sketching approach vectors with a droid that she realized what was going on and the indecipherable chatter began to make sense.

  The Star Destroyer was jamming scanners and communications, which left the Lodestar reliant on visual sensors only. The crowd was made up of comscan experts and runners and junior officers relaying information to the tactical center, all trying to plot enemy positions based on best guesses and estimated trajectories.

  Someone shot a hand up near the weapons station. “Destroyer is five minutes out!” the hand called.

  “Have they deployed their fighters yet?” The crowd shifted at the voice, opening a passage from the weapons station to the center of the bridge where Captain Giginivek—a frail Ociock whose feathers had thinned to downy patches with advanced age—stood. His voice was thin and reedy yet somehow still carried.

  “Not yet, except the Catadran contingent,” another officer called. “It’s possible they’re concerned about the Destroyer outpacing the squadrons. They’ll deploy fast once they begin.”