She wasn’t ready for her existence to end.
She left the crushing gravity of the Cerberon black hole behind. She left the darkness and guilt and despair behind.
Her ship alighted on the hull of the freighter, and she saw the cerulean glow of hyperspace.
CHAPTER 22
BUOYANT SPIRITS IN SOMETHING LESS THAN CELEBRATION
I
It wasn’t until days after the battle that they reunited in the rooftop gardens overlooking Raddakkia Plaza. The fight to retake control of Cerberon hadn’t been difficult, as recent missions went—the battle group had captured Troithe and Catadra once before, and all involved knew the lay of the land. The Imperial guerrilla forces had fought boldly at first, but with the capture of “Governor” Yadeez (Governor Hastemoor’s successor, who’d been an aide to the undersecretary of Imperial affairs before the Emperor’s death) the enemy had dispersed from all but a handful of districts. Those remaining territories would need to be blockaded and contained for many months to come. The guerrillas would remain active for longer, but that would be true across the galaxy.
Hera Syndulla thought of it as a victory. Even Shadow Wing’s final attack had been largely neutralized—only a few isolated bunkers and control centers had been destroyed by the missile barrage. Known civilian casualties were currently numbered at thirty-seven. You did everything you could for these people, she told herself. No victory comes without cost.
She tried to look cheerful as she walked the garden’s dirt path and listened to celebratory shouts from below. Wisps of smoke from the troops’ impromptu barbecue drifted from the plaza. The gardens were less busy than the street, but the attendees from the medal ceremony had been encouraged to mingle among the flora and Hera clasped hands and spoke encouragingly to civilian fighters who’d resisted the governor and Shadow Wing’s occupation; to soldiers who’d nearly died in the battle at Core Nine; and to survivors of the Lodestar who had landed escape pods in enemy territory and trekked across the planet to rejoin their comrades.
Her smile grew broader when she spotted Wyl Lark and Chass na Chadic. The two pilots were embracing awkwardly under a withered fruit tree, Wyl standing half a meter back as he clasped the Theelin woman by her shoulders. Chass looked discomfited, but tolerated the touch before pulling back and shoving the toe of her boot in the dirt. The two spoke softly, and Hera nearly walked away before Wyl spied her and waved her over.
“Glad you found each other,” Hera said. “Where’s Nath?”
“Making the rounds,” Chass said. “Showing off his prize. He’s got a whole line of locals waiting to thank him.”
“I can imagine,” Hera said. “We’re lucky he survived—that man carries loaded dice.”
“He does at that,” Wyl said, and though he smiled Hera thought she saw something troubled behind the expression—some unspoken doubt.
Ask him another time, she thought, and she indicated for the pair to join her on her walk.
Wyl and Chass murmured to each other while Hera led them among the ceremony-goers. She listened but tried not to interrupt; it seemed they’d exchanged a few brief calls since the fight but had had few other chances to communicate. Wyl was asking Chass about what had happened over Catadra, and Chass was asking him about the fight on Troithe. Neither seemed inclined to talk about their experiences. When Chass became visibly agitated she stepped directly to Hera’s side and asked, “How much energy are we wasting on this party, anyway? Isn’t half the planet still starving?”
“Fresh supply ships are finally coming in,” Hera said. “In the meantime, it’s good to keep morale up.”
She didn’t explain that those fresh supply ships had been won at great expense in a conflict over agriworlds three sectors away. That fight hadn’t been Hera’s, though she’d spent more than one night discussing it in holographic conference with New Republic High Command.
“Aren’t we lucky to be first in line?” Chass muttered.
Hera bit back a retort. She appreciated Chass’s fire, even when it was ill directed.
Besides, Chass was right. They shouldn’t have been spending time on celebrations. Yet with the Lodestar destroyed, Adan’s working group decimated, and the Sixty-First Mobile Infantry in little better shape, none of them had the resources to pack up and begin a new operation.
A crowd down the path parted and the bulky form of Nath Tensent swaggered out, addressing soldiers and civilians by name as he went. He spotted Hera and the others and raised a hand in greeting, heading their way. “Look at us!” he called. “Together again, huh?”
He wore his medal pinned to his flight suit—a Bronze Nova, awarded for courageous efforts in the service of civilian lives. He looked more comfortable with it than she’d expected. Hera started to congratulate him when Chass repeated, “Together again.”
Then Wyl: “Together again.”
Hera wanted to point out the obvious, but she understood.
We’re not ready to talk about the ones we lost.
She knew it was best to let them mourn in their own way, but it was a disappointment nonetheless. She’d been hoping—for her sake as much as theirs—to discuss Yrica Quell.
II
They wandered the garden awhile but eventually descended to the plaza and joined the troops for the barbecue. Chass na Chadic stayed with Syndulla, Wyl, and Nath, drinking a cold, minty brew as they discussed the last few days of cleanup. Wyl and Nath were frequently pulled into conversations with soldiers Chass didn’t recognize, leaving her alone with the general.
“…when we finally got a transport out to CER952B, you can imagine how it went,” the general was saying. “One hundred of our best, stranded there while the rest of the company was on Troithe. I’m not sure whether the captain was angrier about missing Shadow Wing or about not being with his soldiers.”
“I know how the captain feels,” Chass said.
“Don’t we all?”
She didn’t look at the general. Instead, she watched Nath and Wyl laugh as they spoke to the woman Wyl had been talking to when they’d gotten drunk at the refugee camp—Vitale, Chass thought—and a long-haired pilot who looked like seven decades of pretension poured into a flight suit. Someone called him Denish.
No one invited Chass over; she didn’t really expect it. She nonetheless felt a distance from her comrades she hadn’t anticipated. Maybe it was what Syndulla had said—the fact she’d missed out on the action, hadn’t gone through what Wyl and Nath had gone through planetside. Maybe it was that they hadn’t gone through what she had.
“Troops on the asteroid were pretty bored,” Syndulla said. “Same for you when you crash-landed on Catadra?”
“Same for me,” Chass said. “Boring.”
Syndulla obviously didn’t believe the lie. Chass didn’t mind.
Wyl and Nath rejoined them and passed around plates of fried fish caught in the city gutters. Chass’s thoughts went to the Children of the Empty Sun. She hadn’t told Nath or Wyl about the cult, hadn’t gone back to Catadra. Let’ij’s lectures remained in their case in her B-wing, and though she hadn’t opened the box she hadn’t tossed it, either.
She hadn’t dreamed about Coruscant or had a drink since leaving.
You will carry the seed inside you, Let’ij had said, and it will grow. We will welcome you when you return.
“Any lead on the freighter?” she asked, and Nath and Wyl and the general looked surprised. She wondered what they’d been saying when she interrupted.
“Nothing yet,” Syndulla said. “New Republic Intelligence is still putting the pieces together, trying to figure out everything that happened. My understanding is they’re hoping to interview Governor Yadeez, but there are…political issues.”
“The chancellor’s eager to hold someone accountable for Troithe’s war crimes, huh?” Nath snorted.
No one responded to the wording. No one responded at all. Chass fixed her gaze on the plaza pavement.
Syndulla started over. “We’ll find the 204th, in any event. If anyone wasn’t convinced of their significance before, they certainly are now.”
“You said that last time,” Chass muttered, and wrapped her arms around her chest as cold air cut through the limited warmth of the solar projectors.
They would find Shadow Wing, though. Quell had been a bastard, but now she couldn’t stop them.
Chass meant to be there for the end of it all.
III
Wyl Lark did his best to involve Chass when Denish, Twitch, and Vitale started wagering on when the rioting in Old Skybottom would burn out. He found the conversation in bad taste, but it was the sort of bad taste Chass had always seemed to enjoy. Instead, she ignored him (like she had every effort to engage her that afternoon), shrugging off questions and staring into the middle distance. He tried to accept his failure with grace.
He hadn’t yet reconciled with Nath, either. He hadn’t found the means, or the words, or perhaps even the reason. He’d congratulated the older man on his Bronze Nova and told him that he deserved it, which Wyl thought was true—Nath really had almost died to stop the missile from hitting the ground, though Wyl wasn’t totally convinced Nath had meant to sacrifice himself. That judgment was colored by the knowledge that Nath had indeed found a way to live; but it was partly a way to explain why Nath hadn’t sent Wyl one final message.
Now Nath was the face of their victory—the pilot representing all those who’d flown with the infantry during Troithe’s darkest hour. He was enjoying his fame, befriending not only freshly arrived troops but members of Troithe’s provisional civilian government. It might have been instinct rather than intent, but Nath, Wyl thought, was drawn to influence. It was his way to take opportunities.
He’s done nothing but protect you, Wyl reminded himself, because that was true, too. You’ll figure things out between you.
Once, he caught General Syndulla watching him watching Nath. “Just thinking,” he told her, and hoped it would be enough.
They ate and drank more as the evening passed and they began talking about the dead: about the losses aboard the Lodestar, the near-total destruction of Meteor Squadron, and fatalities among the infantry. They discussed Gorgeous Su and Carver and the Lodestar’s Captain Giginivek, whom Wyl had never met but Syndulla showed obvious fondness for. It relieved Wyl to talk about someone he wasn’t supposed to know—he felt a measure of shame at not being able to say more about the pilots he’d led to their deaths, but there hadn’t been time to get to know them.
Somehow there had always been time in Riot Squadron, no matter what the circumstances. No matter how much chaos there had been.
Nasha Gravas, Caern Adan’s second-in-command among the analysts of the working group, emerged from the crowd as Wyl, Nath, Chass, and Syndulla sat together on the pavement under the dimming solar projectors. Her slight frame looked almost emaciated and she couldn’t hide a limp on her left side; like the rest of them, she’d been through trials during Shadow Wing’s reign. Nasha offered a curt greeting to the group and after a few pleasantries gestured at Nath. “Let’s talk about a few things,” she said, and they went.
“You know what that’s about?” Chass asked the general.
“Not specifically,” Syndulla said. “But Gravas is taking over Adan’s team for the time being.”
Chass grunted, stood, and sauntered away. Wyl thought about following, but Syndulla rested a hand on his knee to stop him. “I know you’re worried about your people,” she said. “But stay a minute?”
Wyl nodded and looked at the general. The cheer she’d been exuding for the past hour seemed to dissipate, though she was still smiling.
“I don’t know everything you went through,” she said, “but I know you made some hard decisions on your own.”
He shrugged. “I was the one left in command. That doesn’t mean I deserve all the credit.”
“Or all the blame,” Syndulla agreed. “But you deserve more than most, and you kept folks alive. You averted the worst-case scenario, where the whole city burned while you fought it out with the 204th. You built a squadron that kept the enemy in check. And in the end, you didn’t forget your mission.
“So far as I’m concerned, you may have made tactical errors here and there—but you made good calls, Mister Lark.”
“Thank you,” he said, and tried to sound sincere.
Syndulla’s gentle smile became a smirk. “I do want to talk about those tactical errors at some point. You’re going to make an excellent commander but you’re still new, and you shouldn’t have to muddle through it alone. If I have one regret—” She cut herself off. She looked as serious as she did during a briefing. “I was away for too long. I can’t be part of Alphabet, but I’m going to be backing you. We’re going to do this together and we’re going to chase the 204th down wherever they go. We won’t give them a chance to rebuild again.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Wyl said. Hesitantly, he reached out and took Syndulla’s hand, clasping it as if they’d made a pact.
“We’ll talk about all of this another time. I just wanted to let you know.”
“I appreciate it.” Wyl stood and looked around the plaza, smiling softly. “Right now, I’m going to take off. It’s been a long few days, and I want to turn in early.”
They said their goodbyes, and Wyl navigated through the plaza. Staying to celebrate seemed unnecessary—Chass didn’t want to be there and he couldn’t force her, and Nath seemed more than occupied. He’d mourned Su and Prinspai and Ubellikos with Denish and Vitale the previous evening and barely slept that night. Wyl was tired, in body and spirit, and he hoped to catch a shuttle back to the spaceport and sleep among the refugees under the bright stars.
He wanted to speak to someone, to share what he’d been through, and he thought of composing a message to Blink. But his taste for those missives—for the fantasy of communicating with Shadow Wing—had faded.
It wasn’t Shadow Wing he needed guidance from. Nor was it General Syndulla, no matter how much he respected her efforts. She’d been fighting the war too long to understand what he needed.
As he sat aboard the shuttle, body compressed between a bulky young soldier in body armor and an elderly civilian whose head lolled on Wyl’s shoulder, Wyl composed a message to his elders. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d written Home—sometime before Shadow Wing and Alphabet Squadron, when he’d planned on leaving Riot Squadron and the war behind; when he’d believed the war was finished.
He’d made an oath to return Home when the Empire was defeated. General Syndulla believed that he’d made the right choices; but none of his decisions these past days had felt right.
Wyl of Polyneus closed his eyes and dreamed of flying. He vowed to find his way back.
IV
“They really don’t want to talk about her, do they?”
Nath Tensent laughed long and loud and embittered. “No, they don’t,” he agreed, glancing from General Syndulla to the smoke in the distance. This time the plumes were from fireworks rather than rioters, though he supposed the former could’ve been in the hands of the latter. “Can you blame them? Quell was their commander. Losing her like we did—”
“Are you certain she’s lost?”
“Possible she made it out,” Nath admitted, and shrugged. “If she did, though…makes it more complicated.”
Syndulla sighed and nodded. “I got Adan’s last message, too.”
“Not the woman she said she was. I’m not one to judge moral character, but not stopping Operation Cinder when she had a chance?” Nath shrugged again. “Let Wyl and Ch
ass come around in their own time. The kids want to talk, we’ll talk when they’re ready.”
Syndulla tucked a head-tail behind one shoulder. Nath tried to read her reaction but couldn’t see past the surface. He could be sure that Syndulla had thoughts about Quell that she wasn’t ready to share. Or that she wasn’t interested in sharing with him.
“Squadron won’t be the same,” he finally said, “but pretty sure we’re in it till the end. Whatever that looks like.”
It was a display of confidence he didn’t feel. Wyl and Chass were a mess. Syndulla hadn’t said a word about whether the Temperance would be their new flagship or if they would find another. And given what Wyl had said about Blink, it was increasingly clear that Shadow Wing had its own vendetta going. If Alphabet Squadron didn’t find them first, well…
Syndulla furrowed her brow at something across the plaza. Nath followed her gaze and instantly spotted the tall, nonhuman woman moving toward them. The woman’s legs wobbled with each step—she looked like an AT-ST crossing an oil slick—but she was powering through and didn’t fall. She was wrapped in loose gray cloths that looked sewn together from shredded blankets and stained sheets; Nath figured they couldn’t help her awkward walk.
There was nonetheless something familiar about her outfit. Nath couldn’t place it. Her face didn’t help—he didn’t recognize her species, certainly didn’t recognize her features. What he initially took to be skin was a set of chitinous plates perfectly covering her bald head. Gaps in the mauve plating revealed deep-set eyes and thin black lips. As she drew closer he saw that the plates’ edges were chipped and discolored—she gave the impression of a creature scarred.
She said his name in a guttural voice.
He stood up along with General Syndulla.
He knew who she was.
“I am healed,” Kairos said.
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