Zev was squadron leader in the commander’s absence, so the morale of the other pilots was now his sole responsibility. He could see how anxious they all were, how on edge, and tried to think of some way to distract them or relieve the tension. Every squadron had its own betting pool—it was often said that rebel pilots loved to play the odds because they gambled with their lives every time they strapped into a cockpit—and Zev was the guy who ran Rogue Squadron’s. Since their founding he’d run a number of popular pools, including betting on what would be the most awful thing about the location of their new base (Dak Ralter had won that one by betting on “too damn cold”), and the current one centered around Solo’s clumsy attempts to impress the princess. Now he had an idea for a new one.
He entered the pilot barracks and marched over to the board where the Solo bets were placed. Some of the other pilots jumped up in protest as he wiped all the bets off the board and started writing up a new one.
“Listen up,” said Zev. “Today we start a new pool. Everyone antes up one week’s flight pay. First pilot to find the commander wins the pot. Who’s in?”
At first there was hesitance. Then Dak, the youngster whom everyone knew idolized Skywalker more than most, stepped up to the board and wrote his name. Then Wedge Antilles, Rogue Three, stood and did the same. Then another, and another. The rest were still hesitant.
“Kinda morbid, ain’t it?” asked Hobbie, Rogue Four. “Betting on the commander’s life?”
Zev was about to respond when another voice came from the barracks entrance at the far end of the room.
“Morbid? Not at all.”
Everyone who wasn’t already standing jumped up and stood to attention immediately. It was Leia.
“As you were,” she added as she stepped inside the barracks. The pilots relaxed a little but remained standing. Leia’s very presence commanded attention and respect. She had been through hell—imprisonment, torture, the destruction of her homeworld and loss of her beloved parents—and still she kept fighting. She was the embodiment of grace under fire, and the Rogue Squadron pilots admired her as much as they did the commander. Perhaps more.
Leia leaned against one of the pilot bunks and looked at the men assembled before her. “You’re not betting on Commander Skywalker’s life,” she told them. “You’re betting on his survival. Every bet you place on that board is a vote of confidence that it’ll be a matter of when you find him, not if. It’s an expression of hope. And as a great rebel once said, rebellions are built on hope. In fact, I’d like to place a wager of my own.”
She stepped up to the board and took the marker from Zev’s hand. She then wrote the names, first and last, of every single pilot in Rogue Squadron onto the board. She didn’t have to consult a roster or ask anyone; she knew the names of every pilot from memory. When she had finished writing the list of names she signed her own at the bottom.
“I’m betting on every pilot here,” she said. “That’s what General Rieekan and I and the other Alliance leaders do every day—we bet on each and every one of you to keep us all alive, keep us fighting. And I have no doubt in my mind, none, that one of you will find Commander Skywalker and Captain Solo. I don’t like to lose, so I place this bet knowing that I’m not going to.”
And with that she gave Zev back his marker and headed to the exit, every eye in the room on her. She stopped at the door and looked back. “May the Force be with all of you,” she said. And then she was gone.
After she left, Hobbie and the other pilots who hadn’t yet placed their bets stepped up and wrote their names on the board.
* * *
—
The next morning Zev and the other pilots woke early to the news that the techs, having worked all through the night, had finally figured out the coolant problem and gotten the speeders running. There were a dozen of them in the air within the hour, Rogue Squadron splitting into groups of four to cover the search grid with maximum efficiency. Zev led the search across the western sector, and for most of the morning they had flown across the frozen tundra scanning for any signs of life without success. The storm that had battered Echo Base throughout the night had at last abated, and now that the sun was up visibility was the best it had been in weeks, meaning there was a greater chance of eyeballing something even if the commander wasn’t able to respond to comm messages or his lifesigns were weak. But so far all Zev had seen was endless rolling white.
Some had tried to make the best of it here on Hoth by talking about the natural grandeur of the place, the majesty of its vast ice plains and glaciers. Zev thought all that was a load of bantha fodder; he would have happily traded in all the natural grandeur in the galaxy for a toilet that didn’t freeze your ass off when you sat on it. But the one thing he wanted right now, more than anything, was a hit on his scanner, some sign that the commander was still out there, somewhere, alive. He knew the chances of anyone surviving after being caught overnight in a merciless Hoth blizzard were remote, but still Leia’s words rang in his ears. Rebellions are built on hope. Rebellions are—
A sensor ping on his cockpit display brought Zev out of his reverie. He reset the scanner to make sure it wasn’t malfunctioning in the cold, and the ping was still there. Weak, but there. It wasn’t much, but it wasn’t nothing, either, and right now he’d take anything he could get.
“Echo Base, I’ve got something,” he said into his helmet mike. “Not much, but it could be a life-form.”
He piloted his speeder across a snowcapped ridgeline, closing in on the sensor blip, which was getting gradually stronger as he approached.
“Commander Skywalker, do you copy?” Zev said. “This is Rogue Two. This is Rogue Two. Captain Solo, do you copy?”
There was still nothing but endless wastes of snow and ice visible beyond Zev’s cockpit, no visual sign of life. But the sensor blip was still there, drawing him closer.
“Commander Skywalker, do you copy? This is Rogue Two.”
His comm system crackled to life.
“Good morning! Nice of you guys to drop by!” Zev knew the voice instantly. It was Solo, and the wiseass tone could only mean one thing—the commander was alive, too. Zev’s face broke out in a broad grin.
“Echo Base, this is Rogue Two,” he said, smiling the whole time. “I’ve found them. Repeat, I’ve found them.”
He saw Solo in the distance, a tiny figure amid a vast blanket of sunlit white, waving at him. As Zev’s speeder flew overhead, he felt the relief wash over him like a wave. Hoth might have been the coldest place in the galaxy, but in that moment he felt warmer than he had since arriving here. Luke Skywalker was alive and soon he would be back in charge of the squadron. And with him leading them, they were ready to face whatever the Empire could throw at them.
In the meantime, Zev thought, all that extra flight pay he just won wouldn’t be so bad, either.
KENDAL
Charles Yu
Ozzel had a few regrets. Not only because he was, at that moment, getting Force-choked by the big guy himself. Although that was certainly part of it.
No doubt Veers, the weasel, was enjoying this. And the rest of them, sniveling yes-men, were all doing their best to hide their obvious relief at not being the target of Lord Vader’s wrath. Ozzel didn’t blame them. It wasn’t long ago when it was Tagge being held up, dangled like a rag doll for everyone to see. Ozzel remembered the secret thrill he felt watching it. The admixture of feelings, the unsettling combination of at least it’s not me and at least it’s over for that guy.
Because if he was finally going to be honest with himself (and there’s nothing like being seconds from death for some real introspection), Ozzel had to admit that although excruciating, being in Vader’s grip was in some ways preferable to a regular day on the bridge. The constant tension. The helmet breathing. The awkward silence. What does he want me to say? What did I do wrong this time? Always second-gue
ssing yourself. Always on pins and needles. The dread of knowing it was just a matter of time before the next eruption. Not if but when. For the choking to finally be here was, in a way, cathartic even if blindingly painful.
Granted, what he did wrong this time had been pretty bad. So the rebels had been on Hoth. Honest mistake. That was the nature of war. Making decisions with incomplete information. Even if it wasn’t the right call, at least he had made the call. He hadn’t risen all the way to admiral by being a sycophant. The boss had enough flunkies and, despite Vader’s not-so-great track record as a manager of people, the Sith Lord did depend on (if not respect) the acumen of his senior advisers. How else would he, a kid from Carida, have made it this far? Atop the Imperial Navy. Commanding officer of an Executor-class Dreadnought.
So yeah, he’d screwed up. On top of that, coming out of lightspeed right above the planet was not great. Big oops, actually. Although was it really grounds for death? No. No way. Even Vader had more heart than that. No, this was humiliation. All the more so because it was being done telekinetically. To be Force-choked in person is at least somewhat honorable. Doing it by holoconference was just sad. This had to be Lord Vader’s way of teaching Ozzel a lesson. And Ozzel was okay with that. Appreciative, even. This was his wake-up call. Surely any moment now the grip would loosen and he’d slip to the floor, bruised and chastened.
Except it didn’t. Get looser. It got tighter. This wasn’t the moment where his life turned around. This was the moment it ended.
He struggled at first. By instinct. The lower brain kicking into gear. Live. Survive. Endure. No matter who it is doing this. You want to live. His heart still beating. Getting weaker. Blood flow decreasing now. Each beat of his heart pumping less oxygen to his brain.
There was a boy.
On Carida.
What was his name?
A boy from the same small mountain city. Barely a city. A village.
They were the same age.
The memory escaping him. Vader fading, Veers fading, Hoth fading. The battle might be lost, the war might still be won, but all of it fading.
It felt almost silly now, to think of how much he’d cared about military strategy. About pleasing his superiors. About his reputation, or lack of it. They’d mocked him, even as he surpassed them all. Even as he ascended to his current rank, the whispers never stopped. Was it some kind of joke? Vader wanting someone weak and non-threatening? Or even: Was Ozzel a rebel sympathizer, and Vader playing mind games with the resistance, promoting Ozzel, manipulating the flow of information? Just moments ago, he had been thinking of how this would go down in the history data banks. How Admiral Ozzel lost the Battle of Hoth for the Empire by making a key tactical mistake. How Piett would capitalize on it for his own career advancement.
Those thoughts slipped from him. Turned liquid and dripped away now. Colors, light, blurring together.
His hearing went.
A silent movie played out. The other officers scurrying about, trying to avoid Ozzel’s fate. The buzz of activity. On the surface of the planet below, a battle. In front of him, the blackness of space. The stars. Around one of them, his homeworld. Memories flooded, all picture and no sound.
He and the boy, running up the mountain. The rocky, blasted landscape of Carida a comfort to him. He remembered racing up the hillside, sure-footed, running toward his mother.
What had happened to that boy? What was his name?
Ozzel remembered he had once been young, idealistic. There had been a choice. His fiancée. They were to be married on Carida, in front of his family and friends. A good, simple life. They could have had it.
But then, under cover of darkness, she whispered something to him. She kissed him, tender. He remembered the smell of her hair. She whispered and the first time he pretended not to hear it, did not want to acknowledge what she’d said. Wanted to imagine he had misheard it, to imagine she might just let it go if he ignored it. Knowing that it would change everything. It had already changed. History was here. Already, on their small planet. Had found them, as it would find every distant part of the galaxy. History was sweeping both of them up. Join the rebel forces. She said it again, and this time there was no denying. He did not say no. But he didn’t need to. She knew what his answer was. Ozzel remembered how they had cried the whole night together. Holding each other. And then in the morning, they said goodbye forever. Ozzel had chosen his course: the Empire. That was years ago, or moments. Color and light had turned liquid, and now time had as well.
His decades-long career. Decorated, promoted, derided. How had he missed it? How had he not seen until it was too late whom he had pledged his allegiance to? He was not alone in his complicity, but that did not excuse it, either. He was not the first nor would he be the last to go down this particular slippery slope. Authoritarians do not announce themselves and knock down your door. They are invited in. This one promised order. This one promised stability. Ozzel had the fleeting regret now: If only he had been a spy, as some had suspected. If only he had done one thing. One single solitary thing to resist.
And then his sight went.
He was blind and deaf now. The pain had surpassed all thresholds and was all-encompassing and in that he no longer felt it. The only sense he had left was smell.
There was a kind of euphoria, now. From the lack of oxygen. These were his final moments. Watching Darth Vader on a screen, reaching across space and time to touch him. His last contact with another human.
He smelled his dinner.
He and the boy running up the hill in tandem, matching strides. This mysterious boy. His oldest memory. They couldn’t have been more than six. Maybe younger. Was the boy his brother? How could he have forgotten that. It would have been in the records. No, the boy must have been his friend. His closest childhood friend. If he could just remember that boy’s name, hold it in his head. That would be the way to go. Not an act of resistance. It was too late for that. He had lived his life in the service of the dark side. Killed innocents. Given the commands to destroy peoples, families, cultures. Worst of all, he had been a tool, an instrument. Admiral Ozzel. The vanity of it. The high rank nothing now. He was a foot soldier, a body, just another stormtrooper marching in lockstep. Marching for the Empire. Decades from now, when the war had been fought and the histories had been written about it, no one would remember Ozzel. They would only remember the fruits of his work, the contributions he had made to consolidating Vader’s power and control. So much of the vast galactic story written across the sky, chronicled and told and retold, hardening into myth. And hidden in this grand narrative of good and evil, millions, billions of lost histories, personal histories, details that would rot away leaving only the shell.
They had taken everything from him: his youth, his middle age, his fiancée. All the possible lives he could have led. He had not been to his home in how long. They took his whole life. He gave it; they took it.
But there was one thing they couldn’t take. This memory of the boy. Dinner, the rich perfume of stew, of meat and vegetables, eaten in the thin, cold air on the side of a mountain, looking at the double twilight of the twin stars of Carida. Two suns setting, he and the boy running together.
Spooning the last bits of their meal, savoring it. Sharing a cup of warm water, later. Under cover of darkness, something whispered.
He remembered the smell of her hair.
Whose hair? The boy’s hair?
Join the rebel forces.
The time line confused now. Just moments, scattered everywhere. His fiancée, the boy. His mother’s stew.
Again: the whisper. The choice. His silence. History sweeping up Ozzel, carrying him along. History already here, in this moment, always there.
He remembered the whispers. Remembered crying the whole night together. Holding each other. Him and his fiancée. No. Him and the boy. No. His mother, holding him. No.
All of it. The boy, what was his name? Running stride for stride up the hill, his name. Before Vader finished his work, before he thought his last thought, if Ozzel could remember the name of the boy.
Kendal.
His name.
There was no boy. No twin. No brother. No friend. No choice.
There was just Kendal Ozzel, six or maybe seven, running up a mountain on Carida. The smell of his mother’s stew. The smell of her hair as she held him to sleep. The boy he was before he put on the uniform. Before he joined the Empire. Before the stormtroopers and the Star Destroyers and Veers and Piett and rebel forces. Before he ever knew who Darth Vader was, ever feared him. Before he did any of this, he was that boy.
AGAINST ALL ODDS
R. F. Kuang
The rebels have practiced an evacuation like this before. In case of an imminent attack, troop carriers escape first out the north entrance, escorted by two fighter craft each. Ground troops and snowspeeder units stay behind to buy them time. They’ve known this was coming; they knew the Empire was searching for them in every corner of the galaxy. They knew they couldn’t hide forever, but damned if they’re getting caught. The hangar explodes into chaos as pilots and gunners run to their ships, but it’s chaos with a purpose—everyone knows where they’re meant to be and where they need to go.
Still, a palpable fear thrums through the air. This isn’t a drill. The rebel base at Hoth is under attack, there’s a fleet of Star Destroyers coming out of hyperspace to blow them into oblivion, and somehow Dak Ralter feels more alive than he’s ever been.
* * *
—
Dak understands the bleak hopelessness of rebellion.
He was born into a family of rebels—merchant traders and loyalists to the Republic who refused to bow when Emperor Palpatine assumed power; who were caught smuggling Jedi Knights to sanctuary on their transport ships and sentenced to a lifetime in prison.
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