The shock wave was stronger this time, and the tidal wave of fire rose over the fighters as they tumbled fifty meters above the planetary shield. Soran saw one of his pilots dip and skirt the energy barrier, one of the TIE’s wings shredding before the vessel erupted in a flash. A second TIE whirled through the air and was blasted by a Y-wing—a Y-wing, clumsiest of all the rebel fighters—as it attempted to regain control. He held his breath as he glanced behind him at the widespread wreckage of the two battleships and strained to see the flickering of the shield.
For a moment the central remains of the two warships seemed to sink, as though they’d found rest in the silt marshes of Nacronis. It might have been an optical illusion—Soran’s desperate hope combined with the heat-shimmer of the air—but it gave him solace. What occurred next was unmistakable: a clap like thunder rent the air and the planetary shield rippled back in an expanding circle, seeming to sublime. The ruins of the Lodestar and the Edict, now spread in a two-kilometer radius, dropped toward the city.
“Down!” Soran called. “Down!”
He switched off thrusters and repulsors and felt buoyant as the TIE fell. He forced himself to keep his attention on the console rather than the world outside the cockpit and saw his squadrons changing altitude as he did. Two seconds later he reactivated his equipment and took the jolt as the fighter leveled out. Above him, the sky was rippling again as the planetary shield re-formed.
“All squadrons, descend to the city and begin your attack runs. Keep the enemy on the defensive—do not let them coordinate a counteroffensive and do not hold position longer than necessary.” The TIEs were already fanning out, scattering across the urban expanse. Soran paused before adding, “The next several hours—maybe the next days or weeks—will be trying. But you are the best the Empire ever produced. You are the 204th Fighter Wing. You will survive and you will triumph.”
The squadrons raced through the steel canyons. Trapped beneath the re-formed shield barrier, it was the only real choice they had—but that was part of the plan. Soran wasn’t certain what would become of the Edict and the Aerie’s escape pods, but their navigation systems were smart enough to avoid smashing directly into the shield; the crews had a chance at survival, and a slim chance was better than none.
Shadow Wing could not leave Troithe. Shadow Wing could not leave the system. But General Syndulla’s flagship was gone. The forces protecting Cerberon had been devastated. Retribution had been exacted for the pilots who lived and for those who had died above Pandem Nai.
There would still be time to escape.
Soran Keize could still redeem himself.
CHAPTER 13
SHADOWS AT DUSK
I
The TIEs had vanished like a flock of grazing birds disturbed by a passing landspeeder. The surviving New Republic pilots—and there were barely a handful—tore after the enemy squadrons, aware that they were outmatched but determined to track the foe before they disappeared into the city.
Wyl stayed at Nath’s side as the Y-wing skirted the rooftops of unlit towers, damaged repulsors flickering online and off. He was concerned about T5—if the ship had taken a hit, was the astromech damaged, too?—but he knew better than to distract Nath with questions while they were struggling for survival.
Instead he listened to calls coming through on the New Republic military comm channel: Emergency signals from shield generator stations and makeshift military bunkers. Urgent requests from the spaceport for a status report on the Lodestar. “Lodestar is down,” Wyl replied, when no one else spoke. “We’ve got a few fighters left. Who’s in charge of the ground defenses?”
The woman on the other end of the comm laughed. “What ground defenses? We blew up the anti-air weapons on the way to the capital. Unless you want the infantry to shoot TIEs with their rifles—”
Nath’s voice broke in. “Got it!” he called. “Damn piece of shrapnel’s still sticking out the side of my ship but we rerouted the power.”
“What do you need?” Wyl asked. Maybe to the woman at the spaceport; maybe to both of them.
The woman didn’t hesitate. “Give me a point of contact. If we lost the Lodestar, Meteor Leader should be in charge—”
“Gone,” Nath said.
“Maybe Alphabet Leader? Lieutenant Quell—”
“Gone,” Nath repeated.
Wyl winced at the callousness of Nath’s tone. Quell could be alive—enough escape pods had launched that it was possible. Chass and Meteor Squadron, as well. He swung the A-wing in sight of Nath and set course after the largest cluster of TIEs. He tried to listen to the conversation while scanning other distress calls, pulling up maps of Troithe and estimating flight times. He tuned out Nath and the spaceport operator altogether as he caught a fragment of transmission—a cry for help from Thannerhouse, where the New Republic had established a supply depot for the infantry invasion of the capital.
“Take a look at these coordinates,” Wyl said, and sent the particulars to Nath. “TIEs are en route there. I’d say it’s our priority.”
“Sister in the spaceport just said to protect the shield generators in case of a follow-up attack.” It didn’t sound like an argument so much as a statement of fact.
“You’ve seen Thannerhouse,” Wyl answered. “It’s still densely populated even after the flooding. If you want to split off we can cover more ground—”
“Not an issue. You say Thannerhouse, I’m with you.”
Wyl cycled through transmissions again. Shadow Wing was hitting six targets already and moving toward four more. One New Republic fighter per target wasn’t enough to make a stand.
“I’m accelerating to top speed,” he said. “Catch up as soon as you can.”
* * *
—
Wyl listened to the reports from the Thannerhouse District as he flew.
“Three of them on the scanner, now. We’re trying to evacuate the civilians.”
“They’re firing on the dams! They’re trying to flood us out!”
“Rebel—New Republic—screw it, rebel ground team is trying to get a bead on them. We’ve got one Plex missile but we’ll do what we can.”
He saw the flare of cannon fire reflected on the water as he approached. Nath was minutes behind him but Wyl centered a blip on his scanner and raced toward his target, firing long before he had any chance of scoring a hit. Destroying the enemy was secondary to stopping their attacks, and he knew they would come for him.
They did. All three TIEs abandoned their objectives and, as one, spread out to force him into their field of fire. Any TIE he locked onto would flee, he knew; if he attempted to pursue, the others would chase him and position themselves for a killing shot. His A-wing had no meaningful edge when it came to speed or maneuverability in a close-quarters melee, and his shields would fall rapidly against a barrage from multiple opponents.
So instead of fighting, Wyl dived for shelter, skirting between buildings and skimming the water, limiting the angles from which the TIEs could attack. They shot at him anyway and he panted in dismay as their particle bolts tore through squat cantinas and makeshift canal locks built of sandbags and energy field projectors. He led the TIEs through narrow corridors and skipped across the surface of the lake, battering his body against his cockpit and leaving a trail of steam and froth behind him. When he saw water churned by particle volleys overturn a distant raft with the stick-figure of a man aboard, he cried out and pitched toward the sky again.
Quell would have told him to deactivate his thrusters, to drop and reposition and fire at the TIEs from below; or to shoot one of his two remaining missiles into the lake and take advantage of the resulting wave. But Wyl had learned to fly from the sur-avkas of Home and he was too worn and weary to concoct some technical trick. He flew upward, straining his bones as particle bolts flashed around him. His console flared
and whined as his shields collapsed.
From a position of perfect vertical ascent he jerked at his controls and tilted the nose of the A-wing backward, flipped the vessel over, and hurtled down toward the TIEs and the lake. Blood rushed to his head and he fired wildly as blasts tore into his wings, felt the agony as though sharing sensation with his ship, and tried to laugh as the TIEs scattered.
He was certain he’d hit one. Not full-on. Not enough to destroy it. But he’d done something.
Sparks rained onto his canopy as he pulled up to avoid slamming into the lake. He heard the screams of the TIEs’ engines change pitch as a deeper rumble joined the cacophony. He was too dizzy to see as he ascended gently, attempting to keep the wounded A-wing from veering to one side.
But the voice came through clearly: “You make moves like that, I’ll keep hammering while they stare.”
Wyl risked blinking and let his eyes focus on his scanner as he flew in a broad spiral toward the sky. “Where’d they go?” he asked.
Nath answered almost before Wyl finished speaking. “They went away. Take a breather. No one died, so call it a victory.”
* * *
—
The A-wing bobbed in the air, repulsors active but thrusters cool, the whole ship askew by ten degrees and forcing Wyl to shift uncomfortably in his seat. There was a tangible silence he attributed at first to the stillness of his vessel. Then he realized that sometime during the battle all comm chatter had stopped.
The sweat soaking his clothes stank faintly of iron. He searched through frequencies for anything but static. “Nath? I’m not getting any signals.”
“And you’re not going to.”
“We have to get to the next target,” Wyl said. He assumed he’d heard Nath wrong. “We need the coordinates of—”
“Pretty sure global comm rigs are down, brother. Enemy squadrons must’ve hit them first thing. So long as we’re planetside, it’s short range only, unless you’ve got one impressive transmitter tucked under your chair.”
Wyl shivered, pulled himself up the slant of his seat and tightened his harness. “So we work from last known enemy destinations. Spaceport, shield generators, bunkers.” He tapped at his console and pulled up a set of low-resolution maps. Without data from the Lodestar or a New Republic ground base he’d be limited to whatever was stored aboard the A-wing—enough to navigate by, with classified data limited in case of capture. “Flying at low altitude, we’re maybe twenty minutes from one of the secondary spaceports. Could be a target.”
“Could be,” Nath agreed, with the phlegmatic tone of a tutor humoring a student.
“Unless you want to return to the primary?” Wyl asked. “The whole refugee camp is probably in crisis. Most of the military personnel moved out a few days back, but Adan’s analysts were staying in the tower…”
“Don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Nath—”
“Wyl.” The bass of his voice was cut with static. “You think this is all real urgent, I know, but you’re panicking.”
I am, Wyl thought, but it doesn’t matter. He tried to speak. Nath kept talking.
“Give me sixty seconds to make my case,” Nath said. “It’s all I need.”
Wyl nodded briskly, as if Nath could see him.
“Basics first: We’re outnumbered and outgunned. Meteor Squadron hasn’t made it back from Catadra and I’m doubting they will. Syndulla and Vanguard Squadron could be gone for weeks. And the ground situation’s about to get worse.
“Troithe’s Imperial holdouts don’t have much in the way of air power but we left a lot of stormtroopers out there after taking down Governor Hastemoor; they’re going to use this chance to act. They’re also going to be backed by whatever two, ten, forty percent of the population still supports the Empire. There’s going to be rioting and chaos and any New Republic allies on the ground will have their hands full.”
Wyl listened to Nath’s voice, grave and easygoing at once, and noticed how cold his wet outfit really was. His flight suit had been designed to absorb sweat as little as possible; but he was still in civvies.
Nath went on: “Now, we can keep flitting around, but we’ve both taken damage and I don’t think we’d last an hour. My suggestion is we fly real low to avoid detection and try to pick up local comm signals. Find support where we can, make a plan after there’s more than two of us.”
The idea was repulsive. Shadow Wing was attacking, and if Alphabet did as Nath suggested they’d be abandoning the Empire’s victims.
“I hate it,” Wyl said.
“I bet.”
Wyl laughed hoarsely.
“All right,” he answered. “All right.”
He wanted to tear his helmet off and toss it into the lake. He wanted to stare into a sun that didn’t exist in Cerberon and warm himself and dry his sweat. If he couldn’t fight, he wanted that.
He hoped Chass was faring better than he was.
He forced himself not to think of Quell at all.
II
Chass na Chadic floated with the rest of the Cerberon system’s garbage. She was sprawled across the B-wing’s console with her face pressed to the canopy bubble and her legs and feet tangled loosely in her seat harness. The transparent metal felt solid and cool against her cheek as she took in the glittering darkness, and she occasionally thumbed her audio system, restlessly switching from one song to the next but never really listening.
She had survived again. She’d survived a battle no one else had. By now, she should have been used to it.
It was over three hours since the battle above Catadra, and no ships had appeared on her scanners. She’d picked up no transmissions. However the fight had ended it hadn’t been good for the New Republic—maybe hadn’t been good for Shadow Wing, either, though she had no way to guess. As the minutes had ticked by she’d gone from frustration to rage to despair, and then—after she’d slammed her head against the canopy—gone into a state of boneless dispassion.
She thought about Wyl and Nath and Quell, all of whom were likely dead (except Quell, maybe, the only one whose death Chass might actually enjoy). The thought was a stone in her throat but she knew the hurt wouldn’t last. She’d put Wyl and Nath away the same way she had Fadime and Yeprexi and Quaysail, the dead of Hound Squadron whom she rarely thought of anymore; or even Batriok and Snivel, of the Cavern Angels.
You loved Snivel. You loved Snivel. When’s the last time you thought of him?
It would be the same with Alphabet Squadron.
She smashed her forehead into the canopy again to drive sensation into her skull. Her mouth hung open as she tried to breathe and she heard herself laughing. Little dancing blotches of light orbited the asteroids outside.
She thought about Jyn Erso, the woman who’d given her life to stop the Emperor’s first Death Star. The woman whose sacrifice had inspired Chass to follow in her footsteps to ruined Jedha; inspired her to join the Cavern Angels. Chass had heard more than her share of martyr tales as a child, been lectured over and over about the reincarnation of Howeth Zaubra and Father Kashevon’s Day of Atonement, but those had been lies meant to manipulate the credulous. Jyn had been real.
Chass was the antithesis of everything Jyn Erso was. Where Jyn died, Chass lived. Where Jyn brought life, Chass left the burnt corpses of friends in her wake.
Jyn had fought an impossible war against an overwhelming enemy. Chass was finishing an easy war from a position of strength—even if the New Republic was having a bad day.
She heard a buzzing sound over the soft music and, in her haze of pain and self-pity, thought it was an insect. She slapped at the console expecting to feel the chitinous shell of something beneath her palm. When she realized the sound was one of the ship’s alarms, she slithered back into her seat and scanned her readouts.
She swore softly and sucked in a long breath. Tastes fine to me, she thought, but the indicator didn’t stop flashing. Two minutes later it still hadn’t stopped.
You want to wait around? Suffocation’s slow but it’ll put you to sleep before the end.
The idea wasn’t appealing.
She reached under her seat to where she’d stowed her sidearm—the custom KD-30 with its acid-packed rounds—and nudged the barrel with her fingertip. It was there if she needed it, but the thought of her brain dissolving into organic mush was no more appealing than suffocation. Possibly more painful, too.
“Going out there, then,” she muttered, and began rummaging through the emergency supplies. She hoped someone from the ground crew had replenished those recently, even if they hadn’t refueled her in time.
* * *
—
A B-wing’s oxygen tanks were accessible from an exterior maintenance panel to the rear of the cockpit pod. Theoretically the tanks could also be accessed by dismantling the bulkhead behind the pilot’s seat but, Chass thought, what was the point? If she was going to find damage it would be outside.
She didn’t pull up the ship’s schematics or search for the emergency manual. Chass knew her B-wing from bones to bolts—knew her fighter as well as Nath knew his, and better than Quell had ever figured out her X-wing. The Cavern Angels had forced that discipline onto her, even if she’d resented the hours reading technical sheets and reassembling model engines. Nonetheless, she mentally reviewed the diagnostic process and repair sequences twice before strapping on her rebreather, sealing her oversized flight suit, securing the cockpit’s stray objects, and overriding the safety controls to shut down life support. When the air in the cockpit had been extracted and stored and gravity had dissipated like an unwelcome odor, she slid open the canopy and let darkness inside.
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