“Agreed,” Hera said.
Someone was calling attack vectors. Sensor readings sketched in the bulk freighter’s four escorts, none larger than a corvette. Hera watched the looming gas giant on the viewscreen and the black dots like flies. Flashes of light suggested heavy fire. “Faster,” she whispered.
“TIEs returning to the Yadeez,” someone declared. “Enemy preparing to retreat.”
Hit their engines! she urged. But she stayed silent, because Wyl Lark knew the situation and didn’t need a distraction.
A brighter flash scarred the view. She knew what it meant. “Lark?” she said. “What happened?”
Static pulsed through the speakers before his voice finally answered: “They jumped to lightspeed. Couldn’t close fast enough to stop them.”
She waited. She felt the suppressed emotion in the words. She asked again: “What happened?”
“One TIE destroyed. One of ours lost, too. Lieutenant T’oknell. I think he was surprised.”
“I’m sorry,” Hera said, and she was.
But they’d been close. Shadow Wing wouldn’t get far.
* * *
—
The second battle played out much like the first. The Deliverance had spent almost a day jumping system-to-system, searching for any sign of the 204th along its last known trajectory, before another comm burst gave the crew the lead they needed. They caught up with the bulk freighter in the Red Yars system, fighters already spaceborne and weapons charged.
This time the enemy was prepared as well. Chass na Chadic and Boyvech Toons were the only New Republic pilots to loose shots, and neither was in range when Shadow Wing jumped to lightspeed. The Deliverance had lost its quarry seconds after locating them.
That was all right, Hera decided. They were learning.
The third encounter was a daring one. With no new comm burst to follow, the Deliverance resumed its system-by-system search and—seemingly favored by the Force—found the enemy in a matter of hours. The Star Destroyer emerged from hyperspace at maximum velocity with its tractor beam primed, and managed to lock on to the smaller bulk freighter from a considerable distance.
The plan—developed by Hera and Wyl Lark together—was for the squadrons to stay close to the Deliverance and protect the tractor beam projector under cover of the Star Destroyer’s point-defense weaponry. The plan was flawed. Within a minute two TIEs had leapt and spun and danced around the squadrons to close on the projector. Their cannons were insufficient to damage the equipment and break the tractor lock; but one of the TIEs never reduced its acceleration, never veered away, and impacted the beam projector like a meteor. The tractor beam was obliterated and three crew members aboard the Deliverance killed.
Shadow Wing escaped again. Hera said kind things at the funerals and sat with Wyl afterward as he stared at the stars.
“I never thought they would resort to a suicide run so fast,” he told her. “I’ve never seen them fight that way before.”
“We never came at them in a Star Destroyer before,” she answered.
The fourth encounter came days later, after another comm burst came through. Without a tractor beam the Deliverance was forced to take a new approach, exiting hyperspace deep in-system in the hope of surprising the 204th. The system—just an alphanumeric designation, never mapped—turned out to be cluttered with planetoids and debris. The Deliverance was able to force the Yadeez and its escorts toward one of the planetoids, preventing it from jumping to lightspeed while TIEs skirmished with New Republic starfighters.
The fighting lasted six minutes before Shadow Wing escaped once more. Two TIEs were destroyed and no friendly casualties were added to the record, save for a single minor injury to Genni Avremif, whose ejector seat had triggered accidentally on landing.
It was a victory by some measures. Hera joined the pilots in the ready room for the celebration, watching Vitale declare, “A new record!” and scrawl 387 SECONDS on the tactical board. Denish Wraive, the centuries-old pilot who’d transferred with Vitale after Cerberon and taken leadership of Wild Squadron, held court in one corner telling the story of his encounters with the 204th in the underworld of Troithe. Nath Tensent and his droid talked gear and loadouts with the Y-wing pilots of Hail Squadron.
Wyl Lark and Chass na Chadic were there, but neither seemed in a celebratory mood. Wyl moved among the crowd, occasionally taking aside a pilot for a lengthy conversation (most of which involved encouraging smiles and an embrace toward the end). He was a fine leader, Hera thought, seeing to his troops and recognizing those straining under pressure or mourning T’oknell; but when he thought no one was looking, his shoulders stiffened and his expression went flat.
Chass, meanwhile, sat with the pilots at the tactical board giving new names to the TIE pilots. They passed around a datapad, watching flight recorder video and arguing.
“It was the same TIE that went after the tractor beam! Look at the way it veers!”
“Their whole squadron does that. We don’t know it’s the same pilot—”
“It’s the same pilot! It’s Dizzy!”
Chass scowled through it all and made it clear that some things weren’t to be disputed. “No,” she said. “It’s Char. Pretty and cleaned up, but it’s still Char.”
Hera thought of Wyl and Chass’s time aboard the Hellion’s Dare, when they’d been pursued through the Oridol Cluster by the 204th: They’d been chased jump after jump and lost their comrades one by one. She’d never spoken to either about the experience, but she couldn’t imagine what it was like for them to see the tragedy through a mirror.
She couldn’t imagine what it was like for the pilots of the 204th, either, but they weren’t her responsibility.
When she returned to her office, there was an unsigned report awaiting her. Chass na Chadic was the subject.
* * *
—
“I can mess up your face,” Chass said.
“I don’t doubt it,” Hera replied. “What I asked is whether you can tell me about the Children of the Empty Sun.”
The Theelin showed teeth and leaned back in the little metal folding chair on the other side of Hera’s desk. Hera’s own chair, sturdy and black, was built into the deck; apparently the office’s original owner had preferred to leave subordinates standing.
“New Republic cracking down on unauthorized faiths?” Chass asked.
Hera tried not to sigh. There hadn’t been a good way to open the conversation, so she’d hoped bluntness would carry them both through. She still wasn’t convinced she was wrong. “I’m not asking because of your—or anyone’s—faith,” Hera said. “But I understand you got in a fight with your ground crew—”
“Because they stole my stuff!”
“—and that you’ve started praying on the squadron comm during firefights.”
Chass looked smug. “Just once. It was a meditative chant. Helped me focus.”
“And I’m sure it had nothing to do with tweaking the ground crew,” Hera replied. You want adolescent sarcasm? I can be sarcastic, too. “Now, all of this should be between you and your squadron commander. If he wants to let it slide, I’m willing to let it slide, and your religion is none of my concern. However…”
Chass stared at her, impatient and apparently oblivious. In that moment, Hera was certain the accusation was false. As difficult as Chass could be, as destructive as her behavior sometimes became, she wasn’t stupid.
But Hera had a job to do.
“…I need to know the truth. I received a complaint that you’ve been in contact with the Children, and that you sent an unauthorized transmission from the Deliverance.” That you gave away our location and Shadow Wing found us the same way we’ve been finding them. That you’re indirectly responsible for what happened with the sabotage droids. She went on before Chass could
answer: “Is there anything about that accusation that rings true? Anything at all I need to know, as someone responsible for the security of this ship?”
Chass shifted in her chair and cocked her head. “I heard Stornvein was making out with an ensign in the medbay. Do you need to know that?”
Hera waited. “The accusation, pilot.”
“Fine. No. There is nothing about the accusation that rings true.”
“All right,” Hera said, matter-of-fact as she could. “You’re dismissed.”
Chass rose with the grace of a dancer, dipped her torso in a bow, and marched out of Hera’s office.
You could’ve been more supportive, Hera thought, and rubbed her temples with both hands. If Chass had fallen in with one of the thousand cults springing up across the galaxy, at least she hadn’t picked some neo-Sith society or a band of hermit solipsists. Hera had read the brief on the Children of the Empty Sun before calling Chass in—it wasn’t more than two paragraphs long but it indicated the Children had done at least as much good for the people of Cerberon as harm.
Maybe it was all fine. Maybe Chass needed more support than Hera and Wyl and the crew of the Deliverance could give. They didn’t even have a therapist aboard since the loss of Caern Adan and his interrogation droid.
Or maybe Hera had just now pushed Chass—always rebellious, quick to take offense, and resistant to any hint of authority—right into the cult’s arms.
She couldn’t afford to think about that. She could barely afford to wonder who had given away the Deliverance’s position, if not Chass. She had to plan for the next encounter with Shadow Wing, and hope to make it the last.
II
There nearly wasn’t a fifth battle. Syndulla’s forces had caught up with the 204th too many times, and the crew of the Yadeez had taken it upon themselves to determine what tracking device or malfunction or mole was leading her to them time and again. Engineers swept the ship with scanners and tore off access panels at every junction.
Yrica Quell had no solution to this quandary—no plausible suspect to frame for her crimes, nor the technical expertise to lead the investigators astray. She’d been able to conceal her murder of the Emperor’s Messenger because Colonel Keize had assisted, but though Keize warned the crew against paranoia he permitted the sweeps. In Quell’s traitorous mission, she had no allies.
She ultimately chose boldness over subterfuge. She sent another comm burst when the opportunity came—when Keize was expecting her to continue the dissection of the Messenger and when the engineers, thanks to Keize, expected her to be aboard one of the Raider corvettes. When she’d finished the deed and the transmission was complete, she smashed the transmitter and dumped the pieces in the furnace.
She observed the ensuing fight from the bridge. They’d stopped in the Ghonoath system to permit one of the Raiders to refuel (an operation impossible to perform in-flight, thanks to the “improvements” its former owners had made to its drive system). The Yadeez and its escorts plunged into the atmosphere of a radioactive deathworld to hamper Syndulla and her squadrons, attempting to buy the Raider time to finish.
Quell stood by Keize as she had at Dybbron, Kortatka, and Fedovoi End. She did not attempt to mislead or confuse him as he sent orders to the TIE squadrons, coordinating their defense against the New Republic. She did not intervene when Keize ordered the TIE bombers to drop their payloads without detonator timers, so that the proton bombs might drift like mines on the planet’s fierce winds. She didn’t say anything when the bombs exploded, shredding two X-wings and their pilots.
She did not blink away tears. She rode helplessness like a raft on dark water, unsure of where she would land and carried ever-forward.
She did not act when Garl Lykan, the man Alphabet Squadron had called Snapper, lost power to his port stabilizer and was forced to fall back. She listened to his squadron shout as a trio of X-wings converged on his position and loosed enough cannon fire to obliterate a mountaintop—as if Lykan were singularly responsible for every death Syndulla’s forces had suffered, and the murderous thrashing was richly deserved.
But Lykan wasn’t responsible. Quell was.
Keize found a way out for them, as he always did. Quell didn’t entirely understand the science, but he brought the TIEs back aboard and skipped the Yadeez off the planet’s atmosphere like a stone. When the bulk freighter was jolted he fell to all fours, catlike, while Quell crashed hard into the deck and felt blood pouring from her nose. They jumped to lightspeed moments later along with the refueling Raider and other escorts.
She breathed through her mouth as Keize lifted her to her feet. She heard Captain Nenvez crawling across the deck, his cane lost, two of his cadets hovering over him as he attempted to reach a third cadet hunched motionless over a console.
Damn you, Syndulla, she thought. Why can’t you just kill us and be done?
* * *
—
Lykan’s funeral was that evening. They gathered in the hangar bay, though the ground crews hadn’t finished work and had to shut off the plasma cutter and fuel pumps. The air smelled like superheated metal even through Quell’s broken nose. Many of the pilots were still in their flight suits, and all in all it was an undignified showing, no matter the nods to Imperial propriety.
Quell attended because she couldn’t refuse.
Grandmother had overseen memorials aboard the Pursuer. Keize had apparently delegated the task during Quell’s absence—he stood near the front of the gathering but allowed Captain Armenauth, Lykan’s squadron leader, to take charge. The young man’s usual swagger was absent as he stepped into the shadow of a TIE bomber and spoke nearly too softly to be heard over the noises of the ship.
“Flight Commander Lykan was killed in action at sixteen thirty-two hours. As of now, Lieutenant Kandende is elevated to flight commander. I have every confidence he will serve the squadron ably and—”
Armenauth stopped. The crowd of unwashed pilots observed. They knew how the ritual was supposed to go—the elevation of the next-in-line and the private reading of the deceased’s final testament—but Armenauth had diverged.
“He saved my life once, just after Endor,” Armenauth confessed. “He made my life hell every day afterward. He reminded me. He humiliated me. But I’d be dead if not for him, and I know I’m not the only one who…”
Armenauth trailed off. After a while, Keize stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Flight Commander Lykan was a good soldier,” Keize said. “He fought well, and hard, and he was loyal to the 204th. For the moment, that’s all that matters.”
Keize, Armenauth, and the rest of Lykan’s squadron departed the hangar. The rest of the attendees spoke softly, climbing TIEs and sitting with legs dangling on their crossbars, or mingling in the shadows of loadlifters. The squadrons stayed separate at first, like school cliques, but soon pilots began to break away and mingle. Quell spotted Cherroi and Gargovik holding hands, their shoulders touching. Darita sketched out maneuvers on the floor for several of the newer recruits, and Quell realized she was describing what Alphabet had come to know as Snapper’s Needle.
She closed her eyes and imagined the lot of them ruining Nacronis, Dybbron, Kortatka, and Fedovoi End. She thought back to Cerberon, and the visions that had tormented her on a desert planetoid, reminding her of all the suffering she had been responsible for.
These people were responsible, too. They hadn’t stopped. She told herself these things, but it didn’t help.
* * *
—
Fra Raida, whom Quell had always assumed loathed her, produced a thumbnail-sized bag of spice and offered to share it. Quell assumed it was an attempt at entrapment—that if she agreed, Raida would turn her in and have her stripped of responsibilities (and maybe tossed out an air lock, if the old standards of Imperial justice held). But Raida st
arted crying when Quell refused, and they awkwardly hugged. “I’m glad you’re alive,” Raida said, and Quell quickly made her exit from the hangar.
Keize stopped her in the corridor. “You’re leaving already?” he asked.
He didn’t block her path entirely but she would’ve had to sidle past him in the narrow hall. “I didn’t know Lykan well,” she said, “and someone needs to be well rested in the morning.”
Keize smiled absently and glanced toward the hangar. “Walk with me,” he said, and turned away.
Quell followed. She wondered if they were going to the Messenger—somehow Keize had found hours to spend dissecting the machine despite the peril of the past few days. But he passed by the ladder leading to the storage closet and said, “I’m worried about our people.”
“You’re always worried about our people,” Quell said. It was a reflex, entirely inappropriate, but it kept her from questioning the use of our.
“True,” Keize said. “But I prefer when I don’t have to worry so much about the immediate future. They’re dying, Lieutenant. They’re dying, and I’m afraid more will die needlessly.”
Our people are always dying, Quell thought, but this time held it back. “We were never going to escape Syndulla unscathed,” she said. “You told me she was good.”
“But we can do better,” Keize said, and his voice was quiet and fierce. “I’ve spent months trying to teach this unit the new rules of war, demonstrate that Imperial tactics won’t work when—” He made a subtle gesture, somehow making it clear that he referred not only to the Yadeez but to its escorts—the Raiders, the gunship, the surveillance vessel—as well. “Some of them understand. Shymon did when she sacrificed herself to destroy the tractor beam. Lykan knew it intellectually, but he instinctively assumed his fighter was operating at peak efficiency.”
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