“And if somehow the Empire wins at Jakku? The data bank will become another tool to keep Imperial soldiers in line. No one’s going to desert or defect if their file might be leaked to New Republic Intelligence in retaliation.”
“I assume,” Syndulla said, expression flat and focused, “that Colonel Keize intends to destroy this data bank?”
“That’s my belief. It won’t stop the New Republic from sweeping up and prosecuting select targets, but it’ll prevent a galaxy-wide purge. The Empire’s soldiers will have a chance to slip away and be forgotten. To make a quiet life for themselves, like Keize wanted to do.
“But we’re probably days from Coruscant’s fall. Keize knows he has to act soon. He knows he won’t have the cooperation of Imperial leadership—such as it is—and the tools available to him are limited. I don’t think he’ll even tell the rest of the 204th about the data bank; they’re in too deep, they won’t dare turn against the Empire when it’s the only purpose they’ve got.”
“Violence,” Kairos said. “He intends violence.”
Quell nodded. Syndulla frowned. “The area around the Palace,” she said. “Not exactly residential, but you don’t have to move far into the undercity to find civilians. If he goes in there indiscriminately…”
“I’ve seen the images,” Lark said. “It’s hard to picture the scope. What’s the risk like compared with Troithe?”
Quell recalled Troithe’s aerial campaign—districts flooded, skyscrapers collapsed, caravans of evacuating civilians, and refugee camps the size of cities. Lark was imagining what would’ve happened if they’d intentionally targeted the infrastructure instead of merely catching it in the cross fire; she’d never been to Coruscant, and she’d imagined the same thing. How many hundreds of thousands of people would be within range of Keize’s target?
Syndulla answered his question with sober certainty: “Troithe’s population density doesn’t begin to compare.”
“He won’t be targeting civilians,” Quell said. “He’ll try to keep the casualties down if possible. But he’ll accept collateral damage if it means destroying the data bank, and he’ll figure out a way even if the Imperial forces on Coruscant try to stop him. Like I said, I know him.”
Quell hesitated, then spoke again—she was about to lose control of the meeting and there was more she had to say. “I don’t know if I want the New Republic to take the data bank,” she said, too swiftly to sound calm. “I don’t like the thought of spending the next few decades watching millions of ex-Imperials rounded up. But I don’t want innocent people killed, either. That’s why I’m telling you all this.”
Tensent sounded almost gentle when he asked, “How do we know you’re not lying?”
Quell laughed hoarsely. “I’m through lying. Even if I wanted to fool you, I don’t have that much credibility left.”
“You could be lying about being through with lying,” Chadic offered. The Theelin watched Quell, daring her to defend herself.
“I can’t prove anything,” Quell said. “I admit that. Even so, I’m asking you all: Let me take Alphabet Squadron to Coruscant—into enemy territory—and try to intercept Keize before he can do harm.”
With that, her part was over. The others began to argue and pull up data, and Quell sat down as if she might crumble into powder if she lowered herself too fast. She didn’t doubt her decision—remarkably, she felt at peace with what she’d done—but she’d expended all her strength in facing the squadron she’d betrayed.
“What are Coruscant’s defenses?” Lark was asking. “What do they have in the way of ships, shields, satellites…?”
“The Empire’s been holding the capital hostage for a year,” Syndulla said. “They can’t refresh their troops, and rumor is they’re low on supplies, but—”
“I’m not afraid of going in,” Chadic mumbled.
“Someone does have to stop Keize,” Lark said. “If what Quell’s saying is true, we can’t let him act.”
“We cannot,” Kairos said from her corner, though Quell wasn’t sure anyone else heard.
The voices blended together until Quell felt Tensent’s gaze on her. “I’ve got a question,” he said. “You mentioned Keize probably won’t tell the rest of the 204th. That mean he’s going in alone?”
Quell shook her head. “Maybe. I can’t be sure. I think he wouldn’t want to involve the rest of the unit, and he wouldn’t trust them to back him if they received contradictory orders from Imperial forces on Coruscant. I think—” She knew the words would sound absurd to them. They didn’t understand Keize. “—he doesn’t want them to be soiled by his act of treason. He’s doing this for them, so their honor—their conscience—isn’t injured.”
Chadic guffawed. Tensent ignored the Theelin as he said, “All right, so assuming Keize goes in alone—or with limited support—that means the rest of the unit’s probably headed to Jakku. That good news or bad?”
“It’s worth concern,” Syndulla agreed. She held out a hand, hushing the others. “The Deliverance has been tasked with countering Shadow Wing at Jakku. That won’t be easy, and it’ll be harder if we send Alphabet across the galaxy on another mission.”
“General, you know Shadow Wing as well as we do,” Lark said. “Flare, Wild, and Hail have all fought them before…”
“I don’t know them as well as you,” Syndulla said. There was an edge to her voice. “My attention’s been split, and Shadow Wing’s only ever had maybe a third of my brain. Wild and Flare have less experience than you, and Hail’s at less than half strength. The rest of the fleet doesn’t understand what the 204th is capable of, and they’re counting on us to let them concentrate on separate problems.”
Chadic grunted and jutted a thumb toward Quell. “I’m not inclined to do her any favors, but the 204th has a bulk freighter and a load of damaged TIEs. If the whole New Republic Navy can’t handle them, that’s not our fault.”
Tensent and Lark both tried to interject; again, Syndulla quieted them with a gesture. “I’ll remind you what happened at Cerberon. We thought we were prepared there. I thought we were prepared, and that we could spare some of our forces, and I left to join Vanguard. We’ve never had a clean win against Shadow Wing—not when they’ve been on the offensive.”
“Pandem Nai ought to count for something,” Chadic muttered.
“It does,” Syndulla said. “It’s why we’ve still got the assignment. Do any of you really think Flare and Wild are ready to handle it alone?”
The others said nothing. Quell felt her chest ache. Yet she’d watched the Deliverance’s squadrons from inside Shadow Wing. She couldn’t claim the general was wrong.
Syndulla looked at each of them. Kairos was unreadable. Chass na Chadic scowled, apparently displeased by everything. Lark flexed one hand, curling fingers into a fist and then flattening them on the tabletop over and over; he looked ready to make a defiant speech of his own, but instead stayed quiet. Tensent looked more distracted than Quell had ever seen him.
“This isn’t a battle we can take chances with,” Syndulla said. “If the attack on Jakku goes badly, we’ll need years to recover from the damage. And your colleagues on the Deliverance need you all.”
“Might be truth to that,” Tensent answered. He looked at Quell, as if to make sure she was listening. “But it doesn’t address the problem we’ve got.”
“It doesn’t,” Syndulla said. “Which is why I’m going to think it over and speak with my superiors. I’ll have a decision and a plan within the next few hours. Understood?”
She didn’t wait for agreement. She rose from her seat and exited the conference room, leaving the rest of them in silence.
Quell scanned the table and let her gaze linger on Chadic. The Theelin rolled her shoulders and kept her eyes on the light fixture, and when it was apparent that neither she nor anyone e
lse had anything to say, Quell followed Syndulla’s trail out the door.
* * *
—
She didn’t blame any of them. She blamed herself for not thinking of it—for not realizing that if she’d been gone long enough to bond with the 204th, Alphabet had had time to bond with other pilots and commit to another mission. Their loyalty wasn’t to her; they owed her nothing, and the last battle of the war they’d fought far longer than she had was approaching.
She trusted Syndulla would try to stop Keize—the general seemed to believe her story—but what that effort would result in, Quell couldn’t guess. She reminded herself that for all Keize’s skill he was mortal and as vulnerable as any of them; Coruscant’s Imperial defenders might thwart him on their own.
She was returning to the brig (not knowing where else to go, not wanting to face anyone she knew from the crew or see how many strangers had replaced those who’d died at Cerberon) when she felt a hand touch her shoulder.
Wyl Lark said her name as she turned; he looked as if he’d run to catch up with her. “I won’t be long,” he said. “Can you talk a minute?”
She almost laughed. He was treating her like his commander instead of a prisoner. “Whatever time you need.”
They faced each other and Lark, now that he had her, appeared not to know what to do about it. She saw him glance down the corridor and check to see if anyone might overhear. She saw him square his shoulders then force himself to relax.
“I understand—I understand why you did everything you did,” he said. “I don’t hold any sort of grudge, or resentment…”
“I know,” she said, though she hadn’t known until that moment. Lark couldn’t offer her absolution, but it wasn’t in his nature to seethe.
He’d have said it to any member of Shadow Wing. She’d need to be satisfied with that.
He nodded briskly. “It’s just—I wish you well. Really, I do. And under other circumstances, I’d follow you to Coruscant. I believe in your mission. I believe you’re doing the right thing.”
“Mister Lark,” she said, with a bitter laugh. “Wyl—” She could call him that now. “—I’m not going to hold a grudge against you for fighting with your squadrons instead of me.”
“That’s not it. I can’t—” He glanced about again, surreptitious. “I’ve got a part to play here. You helped me find it. You found your principles, and you’ve stuck by them, and I’d like to do the same.”
She didn’t understand. She should’ve taken the compliment and let it drop, but there was something fatalistic about the way he spoke.
“Not everyone would agree with the principles that got me here,” she said.
“They could be misguided,” he acknowledged. “So could mine. But we make our choices and we stand by them.”
She still didn’t understand. Yet she realized with a rush of relief that if there was anyone in the galaxy she trusted not to do evil, it was Wyl Lark.
“Okay,” she said. “Good luck.”
It felt like a goodbye. Wyl reached out and took her wrist and palm in both hands, squeezing them gently. He smiled at her, sweet and somber, and after a moment he let go and turned away.
She wondered what he was like as a commander, and felt a stinging pride.
* * *
—
She ended up not in her cell but on a narrow catwalk overlooking one of the vehicle bays. There were no fighters stowed below—the hangar had been built to store hovertanks and Juggernauts for planetary invasion, but the New Republic had converted it to hold a battered VCX-100 light freighter. Quell had seen more than a few ships like it pass through Gavana Orbital when she’d been young. She’d never had the opportunity to fly one.
A trio of maintenance workers and an astromech ignored her as she watched them replace much of the ship’s scanner array, dismantling systems and swapping out wiring and sensors with a thoroughness that spoke of years of experience. Quell found the process oddly comforting, and she wondered whether there was any part of the freighter that hadn’t been replaced over its lifetime; whether it resembled in any essential way the cargo hauler that had rolled off a Corellian Engineering Corporation assembly line twenty or thirty years earlier.
Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard footsteps on the catwalk and saw General Syndulla approaching. She turned as the woman leaned against the railing beside her.
“No ground assault on Jakku?” Quell asked, and gestured with one finger toward the hangar floor.
“Not launching from the Deliverance—good ground troops are in short supply, so we don’t carry more than a few unless we think we’ll need them. We didn’t at the start of this mission. Got a resupply the other day, but no troops there, either. Infantry’s going with a different battle group to the Western Reaches.”
Quell nodded and inhaled a wisp of smoke rising from the work below. It felt strange to discuss the end of the war so casually—but it had been the end of the war for a year now, and along the way the idea had ceased to be remarkable. “It’s going to be terrible,” she said.
“Probably,” Syndulla said. “So will what happens on Coruscant, if you’re right about Keize.”
So much for avoiding the subject.
Quell pushed away from the railing. “You’ve made a decision, then?”
Syndulla peered down at the freighter, then gestured for Quell to follow her out of the hangar. “I spoke to Chancellor Mothma. She’ll personally send a warning to the Imperial authorities on Coruscant regarding Keize, though she won’t mention the Emperor’s data bank. But I can’t guarantee the message will get through, and I certainly can’t guarantee they’ll listen.”
It was more than Quell had expected and less than she’d hoped. “Well. If it does get through, at least we’ll have their attention.”
Syndulla nodded, and looked at Quell as they walked down a broad corridor. “If the chancellor didn’t care about lives on Coruscant, we’d have invaded six months ago.”
“I understand. The timing isn’t ideal.”
“Coruscant’s an Imperial world. You saw what it was like, trying to defend Chadawa without the locals’ cooperation. And the chancellor truly believes that victory at Jakku is critical. Frankly, so do I—”
“I understand,” Quell said. It was sharper than she’d intended—maybe sharper than she’d ever spoken to a superior officer—but she reminded herself she had little to lose. “Even without Keize, Shadow Wing will have a role to play at Jakku. You can’t let the fleet confront the 204th’s plan on its own.”
“No, I can’t.” They stepped into a turbolift and Syndulla tapped the control panel. Quell felt the lift vibrate and come to a rapid stop. “There was a time in my life when I could’ve, you know. I wasn’t always running a fleet. Sometimes I miss the freedom to follow my conscience where it takes me.”
They exited the turbolift and moved toward the fighter bay. Quell wasn’t sure why; nor did she know how to answer, so she remained silent as they passed by the usual activity of droids and ground crews.
“That resupply I mentioned?” Syndulla said as they stepped into the hangar proper. “What with everything going on, I had a shock when I finally saw the inventory. As it turns out—”
Syndulla held up a hand and looked over the lines of starfighters, then called to Ragnell across the bay. The crew chief was in an intense argument with an astromech, aggressively waving a hydrospanner at the machine. “Sergeant!” Syndulla called. “Where’s the surplus?”
Ragnell looked up long enough to jut her chin toward a column of X-wings, then returned to her argument. Syndulla walked farther into the hangar, and Quell followed. “As it turns out,” Syndulla said, “we’ve got an X-wing and no pilot. I figure I can deploy it how I’d like.”
Quell peered toward the fighter Syndulla indicated. Its profi
le resembled the T-65B X-wings she’d flown with Alphabet, but its foils and thrusters were unexpectedly slender and its canopy extended farther over the nose. “What—” she started, and looked from the fighter to Syndulla and back.
“T-70 prototype,” Syndulla said. “The manufacturer made a batch of them, and command owes me some nice hardware. Didn’t expect it to arrive right now, but I’m not complaining.”
“Thank you,” Quell murmured. Then louder, fully understanding: “Thank you. Is this—”
“You come back after you’re done, okay? Consider yourself on temporary release until the judiciary’s ready for you. You’re in my custody and it’s my call, assuming—” Quell felt Syndulla’s hand on her shoulder, and turned to see the woman’s concerned expression. “—you want to do this?”
“I do. I do, very much.”
She’d already made her decision.
“Good. Ragnell’s prepping an astromech—you’ll need a good one, using a fighter no one’s flown before—and while I can’t give you a squadron I can give you backup. It’d look worse than it does already if I send you alone.”
Syndulla shifted her gaze to another column of ships. Quell looked past loadlifters and a pair of scorched Y-wing bombers to a familiar U-wing transport. Kairos stood beside one of the loading doors, head bowed as if she were scenting the metal.
“She’s all I can give you,” Syndulla said. “More than I’ve been authorized for, frankly, but she was glad to do it. Will that be enough to stop Keize?”
“He’s one man,” Quell said. “It’ll have to be.”
“Good,” Syndulla replied.
“The others—”
“I didn’t ask them. I can’t spare a single bomber—B-wing or Y-wing. Not with our losses.”
“But they know?”
“I sent word. Your squadron knows.”
Victory's Price (Star Wars) Page 33
