“I’m not in charge of the troops. I was sent here on a special mission—to find you, because only you can help us. We need supplies, equipment…most important, we need transport.
“I can’t say where or how, but we’re taking the fight to the enemy. We won Troithe before, and we can win it all over again.”
The crowd thundered back, voices merging but generally upbeat so far as Nath could tell. He caught snatches of inquiries, responded where he could, and caught the eye of a man no taller than Nath’s breast wobbling forward on spindly mechanical legs. The others in the crowd backed away though they grew no quieter as the compact man said, “What kind of transport?”
“Air and ground,” Nath answered. “Sturdy as you can—you don’t want to know details, but assume rough flying and rough ground.”
The man’s legs extended until he was face-to-face with Nath. “Showroom’s closed, but I bet we can figure something out. You know what this place is, don’t you?”
“The Web?”
“Before it was the Web,” the man snapped. “These factories—transport was what we did until the Empire shut us down. Kept promising they’d switch us to manufacturing TIEs, but they never did. The B-14, most popular airspeeder on Troithe? Built right here, made of materials mined on Troithe by workers born on Troithe. You want flitters? Stair-crawlers? Rumblers? We’ll make it happen.”
“You got a price?” Nath asked. He enjoyed a good sales pitch, smiled to show he understood, but he was still skeptical.
“You get the Empire offworld, the New Republic gets the factories running again.”
“It’s a deal.”
True, he didn’t have the authority to make the deal. By the time the residents of the Web realized that, however, he intended to be far away from Troithe and the Cerberon system.
* * *
—
When Nath was done with the Web, he rendezvoused with the troops outside the Highgarden District. Even keeping his speed down and his starfighter low enough to avoid scanners, he’d flown across a third of the continent and back in the time the infantry needed to creep twenty kilometers.
“Think we’ll get what we need,” he told Wyl, slapping one of the boy’s skinny shoulders. “I told them not to bother with anything slower than a combat-rated cloud car. Jeems—that’s the old factory foreman—says he expects he can dig up a dozen aircraft that meet our specs, plus the ground transport. Assume he’s exaggerating and it’s still better than we expected.”
“Good,” Wyl said. They strolled through a narrow alley between the empty lot where they’d parked their ships and the decaying playground the Sixty-First Mobile Infantry used as a camp. “I spent most of the day selecting pilots. No one with starfighter experience, but there’s a few good candidates. Vitale used to fly atmospheric patrols for local security. Prinspai says he—she, maybe?—their species has wings when they’re young, so that suggests a knack for maneuvering. I should have a final roster by tonight.”
“Admit it: You love being in command.” Nath grinned. With another man, he might’ve joked about leaving Quell aboard the Lodestar on purpose. He knew better than to try it with Wyl. “You feeling good about them?”
The lines in Wyl’s stubbly cheeks seemed like chasms as he smiled, and Nath imagined the strands of his hair turning gray. “Even if they can fly, I’m going to have to teach them combat tactics, squadron maneuvers, and everything we know about Shadow Wing in, what—a few days? This might be our best shot, but I wouldn’t say I’m feeling good.”
Nath thought about whether to question Wyl further or change the topic to something innocuous. He was saved from the decision by T5—the droid rolled along the cracked pavement chiming and squawking and Wyl raced to the machine’s side, suddenly boyish again.
Wyl stayed close to the astromech as he returned to his pilot interviews. Nath observed from afar but didn’t interfere as soldiers sat with Wyl and T5 beneath the playground equipment—bright-eyed youths and scarred veterans, both humans and species Nath couldn’t recognize. Tired and endlessly patient, Wyl sketched formations in the dirt and sent candidates away and welcomed others back.
T5 didn’t leave Wyl’s side even after they settled onto the grass to sleep. Nath didn’t chide the droid, though it should’ve been performing low-level systems checks on the Y-wing. He suspected they were both thinking about Piter, the scared kid Nath had taught everything to; the kid he had protected as they’d defected from the Empire to join the Rebel Alliance.
Piter had been the first to die when Shadow Wing had ambushed their squadron at the Trenchenovu shipyards. T5 and Nath were the only living witnesses to that battle. Wyl seemed apt to last longer than Piter—Hell, Nath thought, Wyl’s a better pilot than Piter ever was—but how long did any of them have on Troithe?
Nath lay on his back, staring through the jungle gym at the too-bright stars.
He’d taken too many risks to get revenge for Piter and Ferris and Reeka and the rest. He’d been stupid to try and lucky to survive.
He couldn’t afford to seek revenge a second time.
* * *
—
The grenade bounced through the dying grass so softly that Nath woke believing it was a soldier’s tread. The deafening explosion and accompanying flash disabused him of that, and as his sight and hearing shut down he felt soil and shards of pavement spray his face. He rolled onto his knees, fumbled for his blaster, and tried to figure out where to point.
Troops shouted around him, but their words were lost in the ocean-waves-and-door-chimes noise in his throbbing ears. Nath cursed and fought the urge to fire a blind shot. “I can’t see!” he yelled, and someone’s arms wrapped around his body. He felt himself dragged across the grounds as the ozone stench of blasters filled the air.
By the time his hearing and vision began to return his savior was gone. He stood inside the alley mouth, looking onto the playground as crimson energy streaked down from the windows of a five-story stone schoolhouse. The troops on the playground were scattering to escape the kill zone. On the opposite end of the playground from Nath, pinned behind an oversized child’s model of a podracer, were dark blurs that might have been Wyl and T5 along with several soldiers attempting to return fire.
There was no way Nath could reach Wyl without getting a dozen charred holes in his chest. If he wanted to save his comrade he’d have to find another way.
He took one last moment to assess the battlefield, then stumbled down the alley, trying to shake off his vertigo. He passed a soldier crouched by a form caked in blood and dirt—a civilian, to judge by the clothes, likely a sympathizer who’d helped the company make camp and offered a plate of food.
Nath didn’t speak to either, twisting his face into something between a grimace and a smile when he spotted the Y-wing, ugly as ever, intact on its slab of pavement. He hauled himself into the cockpit and fumbled through start-up procedures—a process slow and clumsy without T5’s assistance, but he didn’t need the astromech for what he had planned. The ringing in his ears was replaced by the growl of the ship’s engine.
Systems checks came next, then manual power distribution (to thrusters, to stabilizers, to shields, to weapons—all in the right order so that nothing overtaxed the reactor). The vessel’s atmospheric compensators cycled, attempting to balance the Y-wing for planetary flight. Nath overrode them and retracted his landing gear. Then he was ascending and a cloud of hot dust expanded outward from his position.
He remembered the soldier and civilian in the alley and imagined them caught in his backwash. Sorry, boys, he thought, but they’d survive—or if not, it wouldn’t be Nath who pushed them over the edge.
He made a vertical climb until he was above the adjacent structures, then briefly ignited his thrusters to push toward the playground. Particle bolts streamed below him between the schoolhouse and the yard. Nath maneuv
ered into the center of the playground, pointed his nose toward the enemy position, and descended rapidly, squeezing his trigger as he went.
Stone architecture exploded as high-energy cannon bolts ripped through the walls. The Y-wing’s weapons were designed to puncture battle cruiser hulls; anything less sturdy than a cliff wasn’t likely to hold up. The third story of the building, where Nath aimed first, became a compressed layer of flames; then the fourth and fifth levels collapsed and the entire façade poured like an avalanche onto the yard.
The particle bolt volleys ceased. Nath smelled dust in his lungs and nostrils, even knowing it was impossible for the granules to enter the airtight Y-wing.
No aerial threat appeared on his scanner. He checked the comm channels and heard troops reporting casualties and scouting the area around the yard. No one called in additional shots—it seemed likely the attackers had been a guerrilla team of Imperial loyalists, not part of any larger or better coordinated unit.
Nath peered out his canopy and spotted corpses half buried in the rubble. Like the man Nath had seen in the alley, they appeared to be civilians. He pursed his lips and loosed a long sigh.
The casualties might have been avoidable. He wasn’t sure how much of the fault was on him, but he imagined the answer was “at least a little.” Still, he’d had to act fast.
Nath adjusted the comm and said, “T5? You and the kid in one piece?”
The droid replied with an affirmative ping.
“How about our fresh pilots?”
This time the response was a concerned warble. They’d lost at least one of the candidates.
This is why you don’t get attached, he thought.
“All right. See you down there.”
He put the casualties out of his mind. His priority was survival—his and Wyl’s—and he’d done exactly what he needed to do.
Everyone else on Troithe, his new squadron included, came a distant second.
IV
Colonel Soran Keize had developed a routine. The thought offended him—when suffering was abundant and obliteration was one poor choice away, the complacency of a schedule seemed presumptuous—yet it allowed him to support the 204th. He could serve his people best as a dependable cog in the machinery of war.
For these reasons he tried to project confidence as he moved about the Raddakkia Plaza communications center and reviewed reports from the 204th and Imperial loyalists across the planet. He smiled at Governor Yadeez when he crossed her path and tried to communicate his respect for her unkempt, underequipped guerrilla forces. He acknowledged, through a calm tone and nonconfrontational posture more than through words, that his own people had barely slept since arriving, had remained upright and dutiful and attentive without complaint.
Neither the squadron commanders nor individual pilots openly blamed him for what had transpired. Part of him wished they would—it troubled Soran to see his people act as if being trapped on Troithe was only incrementally worse than what they’d been through already. As if their colonel’s choice to lead them into catastrophe was exactly what they had expected. It wasn’t loyalty or faith that kept them dutiful; rather, it was incomprehension of the alternatives.
What did Grandmother do to you? he wondered. What did I do when I left you behind? What have you seen since the Empire died?
He was midway through his first four-hour shift as he completed his study of the updated tactical maps with Fara Yadeez. The young woman, for all her dignity and obvious pride in her planet, was more than willing to defer to Soran’s expertise in war. Soran hadn’t known her much more than two days, but already he was coming to relax in her presence.
She drank from a thermos containing a stimulant so acrid it made Soran’s nose itch—she’d offered him some during their first meeting and he’d accepted in the spirit of goodwill; until she’d begun laughing uproariously, he’d sincerely believed that he’d been poisoned. She hunched her head and shoulders over the holotable far enough that images splashed against her chin like an evening tide. “Things will get worse in the Nine Boats District,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Do you object?”
“Worse in what way?” The holoimage showed a riot, or the aftermath of a riot. Civilians armed with bottles and burning rags stampeded away from a checkpoint established by Yadeez’s loyalists. The Imperial forces fired indiscriminately into the crowd. One stormtrooper, who wore no helmet, walked among the injured, executing crawling rioters who’d been left behind by their peers.
“The troops there suffered—” Yadeez hesitated, straightening behind the table. “May I speak freely, Colonel?”
“You may.”
She sighed and spoke in a tone of confession. “When word came that the New Republic had arrived in the Cerberon system, Nine Boats was one of the first districts to spiral into chaos. Rebel sympathizers struck before the enemy’s ships landed, shutting down tram stations. Local stormtrooper units responded with what I’m told were standard crowd dispersal techniques, but gas and stunners weren’t sufficient against the sheer number of rioters.
“Our troops were overwhelmed and—well. Many were beaten to death. Others were shot with their own rifles. Rebels obtained helmet cam footage and broadcast it to the comm networks.” Distaste flickered across her face. “The survivors—our survivors—have been operating without support over the past two months. They’ve seen awful things. Their leaders are dead yet the rebels call them monsters. They want vengeance and I can’t stop them.”
“They won’t follow your orders?” Soran asked. There was no condemnation in his voice.
“If I were on the ground directing them? Of course they would. But if I sit five hundred kilometers away, sending encrypted signals they may not have codes to decipher?” Yadeez shrugged. “My grandfather told stories of the Clone Wars, of planets driven to atrocities by starvation and fury…”
She trailed off and looked back to the hologram.
“I’m not here to pass judgment on your troops, or their discipline. In times like these—” Soran hesitated. May I speak freely, Governor? he wanted to say back to her. “In times like these none of us are fit to judge the ethics of our peers. All we can do is act as we believe is right and honorable.”
“And what do you believe, Colonel?” Yadeez asked. “What polestar brings you to Troithe?”
Soran forced a humorless smile. Yadeez was far younger than he, but he recognized the skill of a woman from the political classes. She might have been asking: Who gave you the order to come here? What is your mission? Or her inquiry might have been as genuinely personal as it sounded.
“I serve my people,” he said. “As I suspect you do yours.”
Governor Fara Yadeez watched the horrors etched in the holo’s blue light and nodded.
* * *
—
“She’s intelligent. Determined. Ignorant of military matters, but I’d expect as much given her background.” Soran turned over a bruised piece of fruit as he sat in the private meeting room they’d created from the comm center’s kitchenette. Broosh and Darita were with him, the former positioned near the door and the latter perched on the countertop. Both wore flight suits, despite having returned to base over an hour earlier.
“You sound taken with her,” Broosh said.
“Does she know we’re planning to dump her the second we get offworld?” Darita asked.
“She hasn’t brought it up. I wouldn’t be surprised if she suspects—she understands that Troithe is only a small part of the war.” He looked to the closed door, as if he could see through to the world outside. “Still, keep an eye on your pilots. We won’t want to get too close to these people.”
Captain Darita laughed low and rubbed her face with gloved hands. “We just got back from carrying messages to the western shield command base—little fort in the middle of nowhere that never go
t overrun. They wanted to give us medals just for showing up.”
“Our experience was similar,” Broosh said. “No one’s spending time fraternizing, but it’s easy to forget that we’re not here to retake the planet. After the last few months? It’s…gratifying to be treated like champions coming to the rescue.”
Soran mentally thumbed through a pilot roster, trying to assess his people’s likely reactions to being embedded with the forces of Troithe. For those who’d been desperate for purpose—men like Kandende, who’d become obsessed with the Emperor’s Messenger droid, or like lost Seedia, so hungry for an outlet for her own aggressions and misgivings—it could serve as a source of direction. Others would recall adopting the local forces at Pandem Nai and recruiting the Edict’s cadets and wonder if the same could be done here—if select Troithe soldiers could be brought into the 204th.
He wondered how Lieutenant Quell would react—wondered whether everything occurring would play to her deep-seated dream of becoming a hero—before recalling that she was long gone.
It was tempting to accept the gift of the locals’ gratitude and expose all his soldiers—as if it were a disease that would harden their immune systems, not destroy them.
“I recommend we keep our pilots focused on their duty,” he said. “There’s more than enough to go around. If anyone brings up our objectives, remind them that we succeeded in eliminating the Lodestar. I’d like confirmation of General Syndulla’s death, but until we have it, emphasize what we know we accomplished.”
Broosh and Darita both seemed to accept the answer, and the three of them proceeded to discuss the ground crews’ triage efforts and whether they’d be able to repair the worst-damaged TIEs. They were just wrapping up when one of the governor’s aides announced that the New Republic forces had been located.
* * *
—
“They were in Highgarden for a full day,” Yadeez said, spinning the holographic globe until a blinking dot appeared in one of the decaying sections of the eastern city. “One of the largest groups of New Republic infantry we’ve seen active, along with limited air support. Somehow they acquired transportation after an ambush last night, and they’re now on the move. We don’t yet know where.”
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