Shadow Fall (Star Wars)

by Alexander Freed

  * * *

  —

  Wyl was dreaming when the call came, his starfighter at rest atop the rumbler and visions of honeyblossoms filling his brain. The broad yellow petals dripped nectar onto his tongue; the sweet and tangy flavor filled him completely. But reality shredded the fantasy and he heard Su cry, “They’re here!”

  Several frantic exchanges later, the situation became clear: A full TIE squadron was en route to the caravan, no more than five minutes from arrival. Su had spotted them during recon and was now transmitting her scanner readings. Wyl detached his fighter from the rumbler but didn’t lift off, trying to clear his mind as he reviewed maps of the nearest tunnels.

  “Not much room for ship-to-ship combat,” Nath said. The caravan was crossing a broad cavern amphitheater supported by gnarled pillars like petrified trees from the dawn of creation. “Prinspai’s so far ahead we can’t even get him on comms. How do you want to play this?”

  “Could try to block them.” Wyl ran a gloved fingertip over the map, strapping on his flight helmet with his other hand. “Find a choke point, collapse the tunnel like the TIE tried earlier.”

  Gorgeous Su sounded grim. “The one you said buried himself?”

  Vitale’s voice was clipped and irritable. “Carver’s ordering weapons out. We’re not stopping the caravan, but maybe we’ll get lucky with a blaster shot or two.”

  Shooting down a TIE with handhelds would be challenging but not impossible; the soldiers were disciplined and experienced, and the cavern didn’t provide room for the fighters to stay out of blaster range. But the ground troops were also packed together—that meant the TIEs could obliterate multiple vehicles in a single pass, killing twenty or thirty or fifty at once.

  “They haven’t seen us yet,” Wyl said. “Su, I’m heading to your position. The two of us will draw them away from the caravan and reunite with the troops later.”

  The caravan was climbing one side of the amphitheater, heading for a misshapen tunnel entrance barely large enough for the tunnel-tanks. The rumblers strained at the ascent, smashing delicate spires as they went.

  “You break off now, you’ll never find us again,” Vitale called.

  Wyl’s shoulders tightened. She was right to worry, but it hurt to hear her fear. “Su, jam all frequencies on my mark. Nath, you and Denish stay with the caravan. If I can’t make it back, take command and I’ll try to find you on the surface—”

  “This is a bad plan, brother,” Nath growled. Wyl could see the Y-wing’s thruster fires ahead of him as the caravan entered the tunnel.

  Carver’s voice came through a second later. The infantry commander didn’t hide his disdain. “Your plan is not approved. We can’t afford to lose two ships—we’re fighting a damn air war!”

  “I’m in charge of the squadron,” Wyl said. “Su? Activate jammers.”

  “Yes, sir,” Su said, though there was a flatness in her tone that Wyl couldn’t interpret.

  The comm filled with static. Wyl activated his own jammers and lifted off the rumbler, eyeing the tunnel maps and hoping he could navigate the labyrinth in time to reach Su. Engine vibrations shook his body, and he watched the serpent of the caravan crawl beneath him. The tiny figures of soldiers crouched atop vehicles with rifles and portable cannons looked as delicate as a child’s toys.

  He had barely enough room to wheel his ship around. The caravan still extended past the tunnel mouth into the amphitheater, and beyond the opening he saw a flash of emerald. The TIEs were approaching, firing on Gorgeous Su.

  He opened his throttle and felt his ship rattle as loose armor plating flapped and durasteel bolts strained. “You’re tired, too,” he murmured, but he smiled. This was his mission—he would fight Shadow Wing, and save lives, and he would do it all enveloped by primal geological wonders. If this was how he died away from Home, he’d be content.

  Who? What? Where?

  The last of the caravan vehicles—a twenty-passenger mining car—lurched into the tunnel entrance as Wyl approached. He slowed, intending to skirt its bulk as it moved into the tunnel proper; but the car, too, slowed and then stopped. He saw another flash of emerald beyond the entrance and tried to determine what was going on.

  The shock wave hit him hard—he snapped backward against his seat as his ship lurched and white light flooded his cockpit. He heard the thunder of a quake, as he had during the cave-in caused by the TIE, but no alerts flashed on his console and nothing impacted his ship. He pulled to a halt and waited, fingers gripping his firing trigger.

  When the dust dispersed, he peered at the mound of rubble where the tunnel mouth had been. The last of the mining cars was gone, and Wyl felt sick with certainty that he knew what had transpired.

  He deactivated his jammers and waited for confirmation.

  * * *

  —

  Carver called for a stop six hours later to repair an overheating repulsorcar. Wyl landed and walked on unsteady legs across uneven ground. When he returned from staring into the crystal-encrusted abyss of a nameless chasm lit only by phosphorescence—a sight he hoped to remember until the end of his days, despite the circumstances—Nath Tensent intercepted him a stone’s throw from the caravan and their ships.

  “You doing all right?” Nath asked.

  “I am,” Wyl said.

  The older man pulled a stick of chewable caf from his pocket, tore it in half, bit into one portion, and held the other out to Wyl. Wyl took it after a moment of hesitation. “We were too late to do a blasted thing about Su,” Nath said. “Whatever we did, she was outnumbered and too close to escape. You see that, right?”

  “I do.”

  He did. The twenty soldiers aboard the mining car—the soldiers who’d detonated their own vehicle to keep Shadow Wing from pursuing—were another matter. But Nath didn’t ask about them, and Wyl didn’t bring up their sacrifice. He’d aired his distress to Carver—It should’ve been my call!—and been overruled already.

  Instead he asked, “Are we making the wrong decision? Planning a counterattack like this?” and hoped Nath understood his meaning.

  “You tell me. You wanted to leave the city, we left the city. You agreed we had to act, and that an air force was our best shot. Folks are dying to make all that happen, so if you’ve got another idea it’s a good time to speak up.”

  It wasn’t what Wyl had been hoping to hear. “I know. Right now, though, I could use some perspective—”

  “You don’t want my perspective.” Nath glanced at the caravan, where soldiers and pilots squatted on vehicle roofs or laughed at ribald jokes under yawning cracks in the cave ceiling. “I’m on your side, but if you want someone to inspire you? You want someone to inspire Wraive and Prinspai and Ubellikos and Vitale?

  “I don’t know them any better than you do, and I don’t care to. That’s not what I’m here for.”

  Wyl stared at his friend. In time, he forced down his outrage and gloom and spoke as a commander was meant to speak.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s keep moving.”

  IV

  Soran Keize walked with Governor Fara Yadeez down the path they’d come to enjoy together over the past days—a route that took them above Raddakkia Plaza on the drift-platforms and over to the rooftop gardens of the Taa Complex. Yadeez had told him that the sublevel greenhouse utilized a climate emulator. “Have you ever experienced snowfall, Colonel?” she asked as they alighted in the tearblossom glade. “Not in a holo or through a viewport, but actually felt it?”

  “I grew up on a world with eight-month winters,” Soran answered. “I know what it feels like.” But he smiled as he said it, and the words brought back the taste of mulled rordash-root cider and the ache of cheeks numbed by frost.

  “Then I wish we had the power to spare so that you could tell me whether the climate emulator is any
substitute for reality.” She shrugged. “Then again, I hear the New Republic intends to repurpose Hoth as a prison for those who remain loyal to the Empire. Maybe I’ll have my chance someday.”

  It was not a rumor that Soran had heard, nor one that seemed credible—for all the New Republic’s hypocrisies, its chancellor was dedicated to a pretext of justice over punishment. Repurposing Hoth, the icy world where the rebels had been so badly defeated, had too much poetry.

  He’d begun to respond when Yadeez cut him off. “Ignore my self-pity. You were telling me about Core Nine?”

  “I was. My scouts arrived this morning and found the facility intact, much as your files described. They confirmed the presence of a bulk ore freighter in the launch bay—more than a century old and infested with mynocks, but structurally sound.”

  “The freighter interests you?”

  “It does.” He could have left it at that, and she might not have questioned him. Yet he’d gone over the conversation in his mind already and chosen the path he believed best served his cause. “If it could be made operational, it could provide an advantage in our mission.”

  “How much ore were you expecting to take from Troithe, Colonel?” The humor in her words was absent from her eyes, which watched him keenly as they walked the gravel path through the gardens.

  Soran paused to kneel beside a condenser coil wrapped with a yellow vine sporting iridescent green blossoms. He inhaled an odor reminiscent of Chandrilan vanilla. “Both my Star Destroyer and my carrier are gone. Consider what would be possible if we armed the freighter for combat. It would require a larger engineering crew than I can field, but there may be weapons salvageable from the wreckage of the Edict. If mounted aboard the freighter…”

  He trailed off to allow Yadeez to develop the fantasy as she wished. Part of him even meant what he implied.

  “It would still be a freighter,” she said, “albeit one capable of smashing mountains. You could strike at facilities deep in enemy territory without risking your TIEs. Maybe even claim control of the planet’s defense shields.”

  Several of the shield generator installations had fallen into Imperial hands already. Others had proved less tractable. “You understand, then,” he said, and rose to face Yadeez.

  “I do, Colonel. However I can help you and your mission, I will.”

  They continued their walk, discussing the particulars of the project—where to source the engineers; how to transport them to the wreckage of the Edict and Core Nine; how long it would take before the freighter was ready, and whether Core Nine could be secured before General Syndulla’s remnant arrived there. These subjects put Soran on more comfortable ground, and it might have been a conversation with any companionable agent of the Empire.

  It was easy for him to forget the true purpose of the freighter. That he had seized on it as the answer to his troubles—the one starship on Troithe large enough to carry a wing of TIE fighters offworld and into hyperspace. To ensure the 204th’s survival, he needed it.

  With regrets, he would have to leave Troithe’s survival to the governor. Like Soran, she was responsible for her own people first and foremost.

  * * *

  —

  That night, Soran attended the service for Lieutenant Garmen Naadra, who had been lost in the caverns beneath Troithe during Squadron Three’s efforts to locate the enemy remnant. Naadra was the first pilot lost since the battle against the Lodestar, and therefore the first who could be honored properly, as an individual instead of as one loss among many.

  Soran had known Naadra well, though he’d spent little time with her in the past year; he’d mentored her shortly after her graduation from the Academy, humored her desire for tactical plans and custom simulator drills over the course of months until she had become a confident soldier. Naadra had never expressed the ethical reservations others had; never even spoken to Soran about why she’d enlisted. She had only wanted to become a better pilot and conquer her fears by doing so.

  He said none of this at the small gathering led by Captain Darita in the Taa Complex gardens. Imperial military regulations discouraged formal memorial services, but every unit had its own discreet traditions. Aboard the Pursuer, that had meant a short ceremony performed by Colonel Nuress to celebrate the elevation of the officer next in line, followed by a private reading by the appropriate squadron commander of any testament left by the deceased and the distribution of personal belongings.

  Naadra’s possessions and testament, if any, had been left aboard the Aerie and her body and TIE were lost underground. There was nothing to remember her by, nor anyone to elevate in her place.

  So the squadron told stories, in the timeless manner of soldiers. Darita gave Soran a glare of defiance when the reminiscing began, as if she held him responsible for this death, if not all the others; but he took no offense and he shared his own tales of Naadra when the time came. Late in the night, they started a fire from the brittle branches of wilting foliage and talked about Blacktar Cyst and the chase through the Redspace Reefs where the Pursuer had earned its name.

  In mourning Naadra, Soran allowed himself to mourn Palal Seedia, whom he had led to defeat over Catadra. He’d wished to know her better and to see her achieve her potential. Vann Bragheer, too, had been a profound loss to the wing. Gablerone’s absence continued to strike Soran often during the day. He’d had no time to bid farewell to them, to remember or honor them. But he could mourn Naadra.

  For the first time since Soran’s return to the 204th, he felt like he was again among his people. They had changed, and he had changed; but they were Shadow Wing nonetheless, and he was glad that they were his.

  * * *

  —

  He woke from dreams of flight in which Rikton, whom he had known in his life as Devon, served as his wingmate on their mission to avenge Garmen Naadra. But Naadra became Fara Yadeez, then Yrica Quell, and Rikton and Quell both died in the New Republic prison camp called Traitor’s Remorse; and when the comm call jolted Soran from his bed and summoned him to the makeshift landing field in the plaza, he was glad for it.

  Yadeez had sent the message and met him there. She was dressed in an informal coat of thin violet fabric that fell to her ankles and billowed in the breeze. He wondered if she’d risen on short notice as well; Soran had worn his flight suit often over the past days, but tonight it had seemed absurd and he’d pulled on an ill-fitting nobleman’s shirt and slacks one of the supply crews had found.

  Yadeez didn’t look exhausted. Instead her expression was brighter than he’d ever seen, and there was a buoyancy to her step. “Colonel,” she said. “I have a gift for you.”

  “A gift?”

  She tilted her head, as if straining not to look back at the field of TIEs—all of them showing scars of battle by now, including the ones freshly salvaged from the Jarbanov junkyard. Among the starfighters sat a boxy atmospheric skyhopper that might have once been considered luxurious but struck Soran as dated and utilitarian. Not one of the 204th’s, which meant it belonged to the governor’s people.

  “The first crews arrived this morning,” Yadeez said. “They spent all day with the wreckage of your Star Destroyer and told me they found…something I thought you’d want to see.”

  Soran spotted movement on the skyhopper’s ramp. Two ununiformed men with the bearing of Imperial officers descended, frequently looking behind them. Yadeez kept talking. “The governor—Governor Hastemoor—shouldn’t have known, but he had eyes and ears in strange places and I recognized it from his files. I don’t know—”

  She cut herself off as a third figure descended the ramp, weaving as if inebriated or grievously wounded. Soran saw the hem of the figure’s robes first—red cloth and leather that never brushed the ground. The slender silhouette of the torso followed, unremarkable except for the left arm severed midway between elbow and shoulder. Nothing b
ound or concealed the stump; the wires that hung sparked and popped.

  Soran had no wish to look upon the figure’s face, but the compulsion overwhelmed him. The glass plate was unmarred, if smeared with ash, and from within a light flickered: a holographic face, aged and waxen with sunken eyes and a crease of a mouth held in a scowl or a smirk. The sapphire light blurred into static, re-formed an instant later, then disappeared altogether.

  Soran knew what he looked upon. He did not understand how it had survived the obliteration of the Aerie or found the wreckage of the Edict.

  “It is the Messenger, isn’t it?” Yadeez asked.

  “Of course,” Soran said.

  His pilots had changed without him, and changed again upon his return. He had hoped their fall to Troithe had freed them from their past.

  Yet there was no escaping the shadow of the Emperor.

  CHAPTER 17

  SHATTERED WORLDS AND NIGHTMARES

  I

  The next time Chass na Chadic met the prisoner of the Children of the Empty Sun, the Imperial pilot had been released from the medical suite and permitted to mingle with the cultists. She hobbled on steel crutches, remained in her flight suit, and was accompanied by a pair of “medics” who looked more like guards. The three of them passed by the laundry pool as Chass was scrubbing a shirt; the pilot saw her but her gaze did not linger.

  Good, Chass thought. Maybe she’s learned her lesson. Maybe she understood that Chass wasn’t afraid to shoot at her heart next time.

  Chass had come to the palace to rescue a New Republic pilot and build a plan to escape Catadra and destroy the 204th. Instead she’d found a blaster and a Shadow Wing pilot and nothing more. She was getting impatient with her progress, but she was developing a new plan.