Shadow Fall (Star Wars)

by Alexander Freed

  Fara Yadeez might have known the 204th’s objective. But her troops surely had believed they were fighting for their planet, not the survival of Shadow Wing.

  “Bring Squadron Two aboard,” he said as the sensor map changed. Even from across the ship, he could hear the rush of wind inside the cargo bay; somehow, his crew heard him and relayed the orders.

  He turned attention to his headset. “Captain Darita? Are your pilots prepared?”

  “Last ones standing, Colonel. We’re down two ships but the satellites are giving us room to breathe. So long as no fresh enemy starfighters arrive, we can escort you out of orbit.”

  Darita’s voice was hoarse, the words clipped as she expelled them between evasive maneuvers. Soran watched her fighter spiral and spin on the scanner.

  “Good,” he said. “We’ll see you shortly.”

  Darita said something in reply but it was lost in static. Her mark disappeared from the scanner as she, too, was destroyed.

  Soran allowed himself a moment of grief. But only a moment.

  When he refocused, his gaze strayed to a viewscreen. His eyes were drawn not to the flare of starfighter combat but to the ground far beneath them—the diffused glimmering of a million towers rising from a landscape constructed over centuries. It was an unexceptional world, Troithe—a slovenly cousin to Coruscant, a forgotten stepbrother to the colonial factory worlds—but the governor’s guerrillas and the civilians who had supported them were as majestic as any pilots in Shadow Wing.

  Troithe would never be reclaimed by the Empire, he thought. But Soran Keize had never been a true believer in the Empire anyway.

  He believed in people. His people, mostly. But in a galaxy where the Empire was no more, perhaps his duties as a soldier extended further.

  He had what he wanted, yet he’d achieved it on the backs of those who’d looked to him for aid.

  Forget Soran Keize. Remember Devon.

  “Arm the missiles,” he said. “Target all New Republic outposts and fire on my mark.”

  The Star Destroyer Edict’s ordnance, transferred to the freighter, wasn’t much of a parting gift for the warriors of Troithe. But the missiles would leave whole districts in ruins. They would turn rebel bunkers into craters and boil lakes and collapse factories larger than mountains. They would ensure that the fighting could continue long after Shadow Wing departed, and that millions of Imperial loyalists would not march readily into detention camps under New Republic domination.

  That would have to be enough.

  V

  The air was thin, but not so thin that Chass na Chadic couldn’t hear the shriek of the missiles as they left the freighter and drew fiery trails across the sky. She stuttered through the last lyrics of her song and came to a breathless halt.

  “Missile launch!” someone called over the comm.

  “No kidding,” she muttered.

  She scanned the atmosphere between her B-wing and the freighter. Seven TIEs were all that remained of the enemy’s rear guard, but they were holding up well against Vanguard’s greater numbers.

  Wyl’s voice came through, calmer than she would’ve expected. “All ships, intercept any missiles in range. Priority is the missiles. Continue pursuit of the freighter only if you can’t reach the primary target.”

  Chass had fallen far behind after taking a glancing blow to one thruster. She was barely able to stay airborne as it was; she’d already accepted the bitter knowledge that she couldn’t catch the freighter. She looked to her scanner and blew out a breath as she set a new course.

  The missile she’d chosen was headed toward Thanner Lake, descending in a long arc that Chass had seconds to intersect. She let gravity do much of the work of acceleration, knowing if she opened her throttle further she’d blow her whole engine. Wisps of cloud spattered her canopy and mixed with the spots of her vision.

  She gave her scanner a glance and felt a pang as the freighter grew increasingly distant. Don’t think about it, she told herself. You got Syndulla here, Wyl and Nath survived. Anything else would’ve been a bonus.

  She switched to ion guns as she approached the blazing comet of the missile. Her scanner showed other fighters pursuing other missiles, disappearing over the horizon and out of range. She was surprised that Wyl’s A-wing wasn’t among the pursuers; more surprised to see that Nath’s Y-wing was.

  Her targeting computer approximated a range to the missile. She let the mechanisms minutely adjust her course.

  She wondered what the Children of the Empty Sun taught about saving nonbelievers. The thought came from nowhere. She squeezed her trigger.

  Searing white energy poured from her cannons. The missile was still a distant, burning object, but if she missed at such a speed she wouldn’t have a second chance. At best, she’d get a chance to look it in the eye as she passed it half a kilometer away.

  Ion bolts cut a path through clouds. The B-wing followed. Chass waited for a time that felt imperceptibly short and indeterminably long before the whole sky flashed and she stared into catastrophe, refusing to close her eyes. Her ship seemed to snap as it was tossed back by the shock wave, and she felt her skull smash against the back of her seat as a spiderweb of cracks appeared in her canopy.

  Then the flash faded. The missile was gone, detonated above the city. The B-wing resumed its course.

  In the sudden tranquility, Chass wondered what would become of herself.

  VI

  Nath Tensent was flying low—low enough that he would’ve been below the planet’s shields if the region had still had any. His Y-wing shuddered violently several times a minute and the floor of the cockpit beneath his right foot was alarmingly hot, to the point where his sole was melting against his rudder pedal. T5 had mercifully shut down most of the console displays to spare him the infinitely scrolling warnings.

  All of which explained why he hadn’t joined the squadron chasing the freighter beyond Troithe’s orbit. All of which also explained why he was low enough to intercept one of the moon-smashing missiles that Shadow Wing had kindly decided to share before departure.

  Wyl was calling orders, assigning missiles to Vanguard craft. Nath waited till the rest of the fighters had been matched up and winced when he saw a warhead still untargeted, heading his way. “All right,” he said to the droid. “Set course and see what we can do.”

  He succinctly announced his intentions on the New Republic channel. No one seemed to notice in the chaos. Nath wondered if Wyl was aware he was still in the fight.

  The Y-wing rocketed toward its quarry, gradually gaining altitude. With all the damage the Y-wing had sustained, however, it would take a miracle for Nath to shoot down the missile—his targeting computer was offline and T5 couldn’t compensate. He considered other options and found them lacking: Unless he wanted to hurl himself directly onto the missile, he lacked the arsenal to make much of a difference.

  He entered a thick cloud front, took a deep breath of boot rubber fumes, and listened to Wyl and General Syndulla exchange updates on the freighter’s progress. He thought of the boy and all they’d been through that day—about their confrontation over the transmitter, and how blasted disappointed Wyl had seemed.

  The image of Wyl in his brain flowed into an image of the crowds packed into the tubes of the Web, who’d roared at him, cheered for him, begged him with every breath to save them from the governor’s forces. It wasn’t like it had been in the rebellion—people had begged him to save them then, too, but now they were stupid enough to believe he could.

  He cursed and tried to peer through the clouds in the direction of the missile. Luke Skywalker shot down the Death Star without a targeting computer, he thought. But Luke Skywalker hadn’t been blind when he’d done it.

  He had less than a minute till intercept.

  “Droid!” he called. “Where’s th
at missile going to hit?”

  One of his displays flickered and showed a chart of the planet surface. A marker blinked eighty kilometers south of the central spaceport—the Old Skybottom District. He vaguely remembered a support mission in the sector and couldn’t for the life of him recall if the area had been evacuated of civilians.

  The missile was descending toward his position. He squeezed off a few shots in its general direction, well aware the bolts would go wide. In all likelihood, if he ever got a glimpse of the missile, it would be too late to do anything.

  He had ten seconds, maybe fifteen.

  “Any casualty estimates?” he asked.

  The droid didn’t answer. Nath didn’t have time to wait. He scowled at the scanner and made a decision.

  He channeled weapons power, repulsors, life support, dampeners, everything but thrusters into his deflector. His boot was stuck to his rudder pedal and his toes felt like they were on fire, but he managed to fine-tune his vector for what he hoped was an optimal intercept course. “You got anything you want to say—” he began, but he didn’t finish the sentiment before white light filled the clouds.

  He perceived the missile and the brilliance of its burning trail for only a fraction of a second. The droid squealed; proximity alarms wailed; and the blaze of the missile was joined by the blaze of his deflector screen. He’d channeled all his power to the port side, and he rolled to starboard, simultaneously hoping that he’d made his move too early and that he’d timed it just right.

  There was a noise like a thunderclap and the Y-wing spun wildly through the air, nearly dislodging Nath from his harness. Sharp pain spiked down his left shoulder as he was tossed about. Vision was utterly beyond him, but what he didn’t see wasn’t bright—no explosion, at least.

  He fumbled, blind and dizzy, with his controls. His fingers twisted shaking knobs and he feared he’d done more harm than good until the Y-wing bucked, metal rang, and suddenly the spin slowed to a violent side-to-side sway. He might have thanked T5 if he hadn’t had more urgent concerns.

  “Where is it?” he asked—or tried to ask, though the air was thin and he could barely hear himself. “Where’s the damn missile?”

  The port side of his canopy was black, scorched to the point of opacity. It looked like it would shatter at a tap. Sparks spurted into Nath’s field of view but he couldn’t tell where they came from. He felt a jolt of worry, wondered whether T5 had paid for his miscalculations, then saw the droid’s message on his console.

  The scanner was centered on the missile. The weapon jerked to and fro, as if the scanner image itself were malfunctioning. It was falling, but no longer accelerating beyond gravity’s usual allowance.

  “Let’s go!” Nath cried, and brought the Y-wing around.

  The missile had clipped the Y-wing’s deflector bubble without touching the ship itself. There hadn’t been more than a few centimeters of clearance—there couldn’t have been, for the plan to work—but Nath had pulled it off with a vessel that could barely scrape its way across a tarmac without scars. The energy of the deflector had shorted out the missile’s systems and now the weapon was dropping unguided toward the planet surface.

  “We should be dead,” Nath murmured, as he fired wildly at the falling warhead. With its thrusters gone he’d hit it sooner or later. “We’re going to get a medal for this.”

  T5 squealed through the comm.

  “I said we. Your boy better be happy,” Nath growled, and concentrated on saving the world.

  VII

  The cockpit’s lights glowed red. The silver curve of the main console reflected and distorted the overheads, drawing a thousand arterial lines in machinery as if the ship were made of blood and bone. Yrica Quell operated controls that felt sculpted to her body, tugging slender levers and caressing switches as she picked her way through the Cerberon debris field.

  There was a battle taking place above Troithe. There had been a battle there last time she’d seen the planet, though now there was no Lodestar, no Star Destroyer. She recognized the combatants if not their vessels: Vanguard Squadron X-wings pursued a bulk freighter escorted by Shadow Wing TIEs, yet failed to punch through the Imperial rear guard.

  It had taken her hours to bring the strange ship’s systems online. The planetoid had quaked and erupted as she’d examined the vessel inside the black tower, inspecting its components within and without. She’d been tossed to her knees more than once, as if the cursed world had exerted every bit of strength to thwart her escape. But when she’d finally deciphered the launch sequence, takeoff had been straightforward. She’d left the tower behind and found herself gliding through atmosphere in a vessel more advanced than anything she’d flown before.

  Once in space, with her friends’ grave behind her and the black hole dominating her viewport, she’d used several more hours to take stock of her situation. She’d studied the ship’s instruments and tapped into in-system communications frequencies, trying to make sense of what had happened during her time stranded.

  Near-total silence suggested that the New Republic had lost its fight for Cerberon. Occasional flickers of Imperial signals confirmed as much. Calm despite herself, weary beyond imagining (the two might have been connected, she realized after a while), Quell had developed a plan with the tools available to her.

  From inside the debris field, so close to the black hole, she hadn’t been able to identify the new arrival bursting out of hyperspace at the system’s edge. But her sensors had picked up the hypermatter particle surge and she’d begun the slow process of navigating the field and crossing toward Troithe. Reinforcements represented an opportunity, she had told herself. She hadn’t expected her chance to come so swiftly, or in this way; but she had to take it.

  Now she listened to comm chatter as she flew away from the black hole, picking up only fragments thanks to distance and decryption failures. She heard General Syndulla’s voice and smiled softly at the familiar sound of her mentor—her second mentor—ordering Vanguard ships against the handful of TIEs escorting the freighter. She thought she heard Wyl Lark’s voice, too, and felt the tension in her muscles momentarily release. Some of her squadron might have survived after all.

  Syndulla would be disappointed by what Quell intended. Quell’s squadron would understand better. They knew her secrets, and Quell was incapable of disappointing them.

  She could hear Imperial communications, too—where she’d needed to enter decryption codes into the computer to hear Vanguard, the TIEs were decoded automatically. She listened to her first mentor advise the TIE pilots as their numbers dwindled, and found the voice of Soran Keize strangely unfamiliar. She heard the sacrifice of Captain Darita and mourned; she’d barely known the woman, but they’d watched out for each other, cast glances across the mess hall and stepped in when the other was hassled by a leering member of the Pursuer’s crew. Quell had forgotten those moments until now, like so many others she’d suppressed before Pandem Nai.

  Captain Darita would be disappointed in her, too.

  As for Major Keize? She wasn’t certain.

  Quell’s ship slipped below an asteroid embedded with the wreckage of an ancient dreadnought. She continued her course toward the bulk freighter and increased thruster output. The debris field blurred around her. She didn’t have long to act.

  The black tower and the burning eye of Cerberon had nearly buried her in the torment of her past. She was thinking about her future, now—had been trying to envision it since she’d left the corpse of Caern Adan. I move forward, the spy had said. IT-O, too, had clarified her path: The droid had done so much for her, but when its memory had been stripped away it had recognized her as just another war criminal deserving punishment.

  What more could she have expected?

  The ship emerged from the debris field. She saw the bright orb of Troithe against the stars and reali
zed that the bulk freighter would be out of the planet’s gravity well in moments. Shadow Wing would escape back into the galaxy and New Republic Intelligence would be left to begin the chase anew—only this time, they wouldn’t have Caern Adan to lead the working group.

  Quell gingerly depressed a black crystal inlaid in the silver console, then drew back a lever above her head. The ship hummed, softly at first and then rising to a bone-aching buzz. The cockpit lights dimmed and went out, leaving only the indicators and screens to illuminate the domed compartment.

  A message flashed onto one of the displays: CLOAKING SYSTEM ENGAGED.

  Quell emitted a small sound of approval. The ship really was a beauty.

  She sped toward the bulk freighter. She doubted the cloak would last more than a few minutes, but that would suit her well enough. She checked the controls that she thought—she hoped—operated the magnetic clamps and shifted in the enveloping metal curves of her seat.

  She winced as her left biceps brushed her harness. She touched it gingerly with two fingers of her right hand, exploring the bandage wrapped around her arm. The wound was still fresh, acquired after she’d taken off from the planetoid and determined her next steps.

  Beneath the bandage was a swath of burnt and bloodied skin where a tattoo had once been—a tattoo of five mismatched starfighters racing together into battle.

  She wouldn’t need that tattoo anymore.

  The last TIEs were speeding into the freighter’s cargo bay. The Vanguard fighters were firing wildly as the freighter’s lightspeed engines powered online. Quell heard Wyl Lark’s voice yell about missile interceptions and she laughed a little, racing through the chaos toward her target.

  The freighter was going to escape. It was too late to stop it. Invisible to all sensors, Quell was going to go with it.

  She’d been thinking about her future, and what would become of her in the New Republic. When her tribunal came, who wouldn’t see her as IT-O had? As her squadron had?