“Wild and Hail, hold position,” he said. “Flare, with me for a better look.”
Affirmative responses came in. Wyl opened his throttle and swung his vessel toward the bright marks on his scanner. When his course was set, the universe seemed still and his roaring thrusters impotent—in the vastness of realspace, the only signs he was in motion were his console indicators and, far behind, the lights of the other starfighters.
It was almost a minute before he could pick out specks against the darkness. His sensors estimated the distant vessels’ speed and mass. They were too large to be fighters but smaller than frigates—gunships, maybe, but Wyl couldn’t guess at their specifications. He didn’t have the encyclopedic knowledge Yrica Quell had possessed.
Quell.
Wyl had seen many friends die in the war. But the loss of Quell was different from the loss of Sonogari or Sata Neek.
“I need an ID,” he said. “Anyone recognize them?”
“One in the back looks like an Imperial cargo hauler,” Ghordansk replied. Ghordansk had an answer for everything, and half the time he was right. “Running hot, too—maybe a radiation leak.”
Wyl altered his approach, angling to one side. The specks of the Imperial vessels were flickering around the edges, as if their shields were alive with energy or—
He checked his sensors again, noted the heat signatures.
“Keep your distance,” he said. “I’m going for a flyby.”
He sent a burst of power to his thrusters and adjusted the comm again as he accelerated toward the enemy formation. The garbled sounds of encrypted messages echoed in his cockpit. He squinted and leaned forward until the specks began to crystallize—boxy, black forms, clearly Imperial but lacking the predatory angles of a Star Destroyer. Flames and electrical arcs danced along their sides and spilled into vacuum.
“This is Starfighter commander Wyl Lark to the Imperial vessels. Please report your status.”
It could have been a trap, he knew—bait left by Shadow Wing to lure in New Republic ships. The Imperial cargo vessels could have been rigged to detonate, or TIE fighters could have been hiding a short distance away.
An answer came, too distorted for him to understand.
“This is Wyl Lark. Say again?”
“This is Captain Oultovar Misk of the freighter Diamond Tor. We are in need of assistance and are prepared to surrender. Repeat: We surrender!”
Wyl had entered firing range. A flash of light caught his attention and he swiveled his head, fearing a cannon barrage and instead witnessing an eruption of fire and molten metal from the port side of a cargo vessel.
It wasn’t a trap. He didn’t think it was a trap.
It might be something worse.
“Captain Misk?” he said. “What happened to your convoy?”
The voice hesitated then replied, interrupted by bursts of static and mechanical whines: “We were in a battle. TIE fighters attacked us. Dismantled our escorts in minutes, then moved on.”
“Why?” Wyl asked. “Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know. We were—we were operating under the protection of the Yomo Council. One of the other factions must have taken exception, decided to come after—”
The voice stopped speaking. Wyl thought at first that transmission problems had shut it down, but then he heard heavy breathing and what could only be weeping.
“Imperial against Imperial,” the voice said. “That’s what the war is, now. Family killing family, oaths unraveling. How can it—are you going to help us?”
Wyl flinched as if struck. “Of course. Of course we’ll help. Stay where you are, we’ve got more ships incoming.”
He transmitted an all-clear to the Deliverance and ordered his squadrons into range to assist with evacuation and damage control. He tried to keep the fighters from exposing themselves without compromising the rescue. It wasn’t a trap, not one set by the Diamond Tor and the other cargo ships, but that was no guarantee the danger had passed.
As Wyl worked, he thought of Captain Misk’s words and what Shadow Wing was capable of, and all the Imperial atrocities committed after the Battle of Endor. He’d witnessed none of them at the time, but he’d read about Operation Cinder—the murder of worlds, like Nacronis, that had posed no threat to the Empire.
He wondered what horrors were in store for all of them now, when the Empire was truly desperate.
CHAPTER 2
“SILT SEA THRENODY” (NACRONIS BURIAL SONG)
I
The planet below the bulk freighter was a smudge of brown and green enlivened only by three rose-colored moons whose movement was visible unassisted if one watched closely enough, as a person might watch clouds known to be in motion but tranquil at a glance. The freighter’s viewscreen accompanied this minor exhibition with a steady scroll of data down the margins, indicating the drift of debris off the freighter’s port side and energy readings from the planet’s surface that were almost certainly jury-rigged deflectors; but Soran kept his attention on the centermost moon. It gave him the appearance, he believed, of a man in deep concentration.
“This is Colonel Soran Keize of the 204th Imperial Fighter Wing and the carrier Yadeez. In response to the Yomo Council’s treasonous actions—its defiance of Grand Admiral Sloane’s order to direct assets to the D’Aelgoth sector, its refusal to acknowledge the Empire’s rightful regent on Coruscant, and its alliance with the Shiortuun Syndicate, among others—we have been sent to bring retribution to your world.”
The speech did not require deep concentration. But he owed his crew—and his victims—the appearance of gravity. He drew a long breath through his nostrils, smelled the stinging copper odor of old ore hauls, and went on.
“Over the next twenty-four hours, the planet Fedovoi End will be rendered uninhabitable. The Yomo Council will die with the territory it usurped. Governor Brashan, General Tuluh, and their criminal cohorts will be erased from history. This is not negotiable; surrender will not be accepted. Every traitor will be punished.”
This is Operation Cinder, he thought, though he did not say the words aloud. He’d perfected the speech over the past weeks and found the elaboration unnecessary.
He shifted his gaze from the rose moon to scan the bridge crew. Cadet Coora—Ensign Coora, he had to remind himself, since he’d authorized her promotion—leaned too far over her tactical console, attempting to conceal her anxiety. Lieutenant Heirorius looked frequently to the bejowled Captain Nenvez as that man tapped his cane against the antique deck plating. Soran heard the soft breathing of his own aide behind him.
All as he expected. He returned his gaze to the screen.
“To the rest of the inhabitants of this world, I offer a choice. Once, you were Imperials—not in name alone, as now, but in heart and hierarchy. You can be so again, but only if you accept the demise of your disloyal superiors and the planet you now occupy. Reaffirm your allegiance to the true Empire. Abandon Fedovoi End. Join us in orbit, and you may assist the 204th in its mission—”
Its mission to purge every world tainted by Imperials who dared to escape the Emperor’s shadow.
“—or if you are unqualified for such duties, you will be escorted to a rendezvous with the Imperial fleet. Either way, Fedovoi End must die. Refuse, and you die with it.”
It was a valid choice, for some—for those who had ships to fly, who weren’t held at blasterpoint by minions of the Yomo Council. Yet among those people capable of joining Shadow Wing, some would accept death as the alternative. They would be loyal to the Yomo Council for ideological or pragmatic reasons; they would wish to fight for their planet, bound to their home by ancestral ties; they would believe Soran’s threats a bluff, or his forces beatable, or the remnants of the true Empire so desiccated as to be unworthy of their pledge.
There was enou
gh pity left in Soran that he took no pleasure in their inevitable deaths, but he did not flinch from his task. He had given the 204th to the likes of Grand Admiral Sloane for a reason, and that reason hadn’t involved any delusions that the Empire might avert its own gradual obliteration. Instead the 204th’s troubles in Cerberon had reaffirmed his belief that Shadow Wing required purpose to survive—and had taught him the moral necessity of looking beyond his own unit and taking responsibility for all Imperial soldiers who crossed his path. Now, purging world after world, he saw his people cleave to the duty they’d been given. When they recruited newcomers into their fold, they celebrated; when they shot down TIE fighters and melted cities, they believed themselves patriots avenging themselves on traitors who’d cost them a swift victory after the Emperor’s death.
The task he had been given by Admiral Sloane was not the task Soran would have chosen. Yet it sufficed. He needed the true Empire to keep his people alive.
At least until it doomed them all.
“Has there been any reply? Any signal from the planet?” he asked.
Heirorius spun from the comscan station. “No reply, Colonel. Reading energy spikes from the surface—I believe they’re powering ion cannons.”
Heirorius had joined Shadow Wing at Dybbron III, when that world had been engulfed by this second Operation Cinder. Soran could only assume the man was remembering what had happened there, though the twenty-year veteran was too professional to show it.
“Very well. Send the order to move in. The escorts will take position near the moons. Commander Broosh will lead the TIEs into the atmosphere.”
The bridge, previously silent save for the hum of machinery and the chime of consoles, was filled with the susurrus of crew relaying orders and transmitting queries. The updates scrolling down the viewscreen altered in color and intensity as TIE squadrons set course and larger vessels readied covering fire. The Yadeez’s escorts included a pair of refitted and undercrewed Raider-class corvettes, a pirate gunship hauled out of the evidence yards of Dybbron, and a surveillance vessel stripped to the bone and rebuilt for combat. The TIE squadrons were Imperial standard only in comparison, with approved assemblies replaced by a technological patchwork and once-uniform squadrons of base-model TIEs freely mixing interceptors, bombers, strikers, and other esoteric designs looted from the 204th’s victims.
No ship in Shadow Wing had the raw firepower to turn Fedovoi End lifeless. But improvisation had been the skill to learn ever since the Battle of Endor, and the first Operation Cinder had proved that every planet had its weakness.
“The TIEs are going straight to the capital?” his aide asked, behind and to the right of Soran.
“Simplest to eliminate the planetary defenses before turning to the real work,” Soran answered.
“Simplest, maybe. What about the advantages of panic?”
Soran arched his brow and turned about. Lieutenant Yrica Quell stood with her arms folded across her chest, dressed in a loose shirt of dark fabric that did little to hide how gaunt she really was. When he’d first met the woman, she’d struck him as narrow but sturdy, like a steel beam; now the steel had been cut and burned away until it was a razor mesh.
“Explain,” Soran said, with the curt command of an instructor to a student.
“They sent their heavy firepower at us already—they’re no real threat except at short range. Hit the polar regions first and they’ll piece together our plan but won’t have the mobility to stop us. The longer we work, the more afraid they’ll become. They’ll be primed to make mistakes.”
“They’ll also have time to prepare,” Soran said. “Suppose our assessment of their capabilities is off—when we finally do strike the capital, we could lose TIEs. We could lose pilots.”
Quell blinked bloodshot eyes almost concealed behind strands of hair. “Or we could find the Yomo Council already deposed. The planet can’t possibly be stable. Terrified civilians and loyalists might work together if we buy them time.”
Soran weighed the argument. There was merit to it, along with risk. Quell was asking to introduce unknown elements into an equation nearly solved, and yet—
“Very well,” Soran said. Over the past weeks, he had learned to appreciate Quell’s instincts, if not always trust them.
He turned away too quickly to spot Quell’s reaction, though he imagined her expression would stay flat as it had since she’d arrived aboard the Yadeez. He called new commands to Heirorius, and the voices on the bridge shifted subtly in timbre while the updates on the viewscreen continued scrolling. He waited a minute, then two, studying the battlefield for anything out of the ordinary—a secondary force hidden on one of the moons, a buried planetary defense network with superior range to the ion cannons—and saw nothing to concern him.
The first TIE bombers approached the northern ice cap. Soran adjusted the bridge comm and listened to Commander Broosh order bombs released above the target zone. Images transmitted from the TIEs showed ice shattering, flashing into steam in an instant. Larger ice sheets around the rim of the bomb crater collapsed into the hole, which in turn released a billowing fog—gases trapped underground for millennia, now freed.
Soran turned from the screen and gestured to Nenvez. “Summon me if I’m required,” he said, and marched to the hatch leading from the bridge to the central corridor. He heard footsteps following him but did not look back.
Six meters into the narrow passage, out of hearing range of the bridge crew, Soran heard Quell’s voice again. “You’re not supervising?”
He kept walking. “I’m not.”
“It’s a combat operation.”
“Until a counterattack begins, it’s a geoengineering project.”
There was an edge to her voice. “You’re their commander—”
“And they have their orders. I have faith that they will execute them without my meticulous oversight—and I have other duties that require attention.”
Genocide, Soran thought, was an onerous task without a Death Star to quicken it. The first Operation Cinder had involved weather control satellites and groundquakes and artificial tsunamis; Fedovoi End would find its atmosphere gradually poisoned as the TIEs opened up more and more gas pockets. The planet’s military bases would naturally be protected against chemical attacks, but Shadow Wing could neutralize those bases via the traditional methods. The population was small enough that they were few in number.
He wondered whether the psychological toll of such an operation was greater than that placed on the Death Star gunners who eliminated billions with the throw of a lever. He quashed the thought before it got out of hand—it would lead to unpleasant and unsatisfying places while leaving him no choice but to continue.
He resumed walking. The footsteps did not follow. He flicked his hand. “Come if you like, Lieutenant. I could use your perspective.”
“Of course,” Quell said. She sounded chastened but professional as ever.
They maneuvered through the ship, squeezing down hatches and ducking beneath conduits and piping. The fragrance of old metal became masked by the aroma of boiled vegetables and mashed grains, then by sweat, and finally by oil as they passed the galley, crew billets, and engineering bay in turn. A Star Destroyer’s oxygen systems were built to neutralize odor; the century-old bulk freighter was less luxurious. When Soran reached his cabin he punched in his access code three times before the locking mechanism pinged and the door slid back a whole two centimeters; he had to haul it open the rest of the way.
Inside, he took a single step to reach his desk chair and waved Quell to a seat on his bunk. He raised his terminal screen and scanned the feed.
“You wanted to talk?” Quell asked.
“Tell me again,” he said, looking directly at her for the first time since the bridge, “about Traitor’s Remorse.”
“What about it
?”
She attempted to conceal her wariness without success, doubtless concerned he was testing her. Maybe he was—after all, Yrica Quell was something of an enigma—though his conscious reasons involved no duplicity or subterfuge. “You said before that those like yourself—the Imperials who defected to the New Republic but who weren’t selected to serve—were left in limbo, almost forgotten in the camp.”
“That’s right.”
“That was months ago. What do you think has become of them?”
“Are they still there, you mean?” Quell waited; Soran nodded, and she went on: “Maybe not there, but probably still in limbo. I doubt the New Republic is taking many new defectors this long after Endor…in that case, they might’ve closed down Traitor’s Remorse altogether. Transferred the dregs over to a permanent facility with whoever else they plan to put on trial and punish.”
“Would they have tightened security after you escaped?”
“It’s possible. I doubt they cared enough to expend the resources.”
Soran nodded again, studying Quell and allowing his thoughts to wander. When she spoke about Traitor’s Remorse she spoke with the detachment of an analyst, not the passion of someone who had experienced its indignities. That was no surprise—Quell would never admit to a loss of control, would fight to preserve her stoic dignity in the presence of a superior officer—but it left a veil between them he was unable to penetrate.
Soran was responsible for sending Quell to Traitor’s Remorse in the first place. For telling her that the war was lost, that she would destroy herself if she remained with the 204th in the aftermath of the first Cinder, and ultimately insisting that she defect. Afterward, he himself had deserted the unit in a misguided effort to set an example, and while Quell had been confined and interrogated, awaiting sentencing while rebels recruited their pick of her colleagues, he had become the wanderer Devon.
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