His gaze went to his surroundings. The bridge they were crossing was an arc that stretched over a wide expanse of water; an inland channel of the sea that Coronet City bordered ran far below them, waters cold as the sea itself. Usually the channel was filled with boats hauling goods or small pleasure craft escaping the city. But at this time of night, the water was empty. In fact, the streets around them were empty. Quiet. Except for Genial’s grating insults.
Ahead of them, just over the cresting hill, Winshur could see the brightly lit home of Hasadar Shu. It had to be it. Even from this far away, he could hear the high hum of music and voices raised to be heard over the music. They were almost there, and then what?
For the moment they still stood in the generous gloom. Shadows pooled around them, creating a darkness that Winshur had never cared for before but now felt a profound kinship with.
He felt himself floating, high above the bridge, the colonel, too. Himself. As if he could look down from a great height and see the two tiny men on the tiny bridge with the vast ocean below and around them. At first, he didn’t like what he saw. The one man tall and authoritative, the other small and beaten. But when he looked closer, he could see the smaller man was growing. Burgeoning. Spreading like the sea.
“Who is Winshur Bratt now?” he asked himself. “And who will he be?”
Colonel Genial turned sharply. “Did you say something?”
His voice was a challenge that a more timid Winshur, a Winshur of even ten minutes ago, would have ducked and evaded. But this strange floating Winshur, this other him, the growing him, the one who felt the possibilities of violence for the first time, simply smiled.
Genial’s eyes narrowed. “Is this a joke to you?”
Winshur shook his head no.
“Then pick up your pace. We want to be there when the criminal is detained.” Genial’s mouth turned down cruelly. “And you are faced with your failure.”
Screams punctured the air, small but distinct and growing. On their heels, blasterfire. All coming from the house on the hill.
“Dammit, we’re late!” Genial growled. “Hurry up, Bratt.”
Winshur made his feet move. They were like concrete at first, heavy and impossible. But as his resolve solidified, his feet became lighter, just like his consciousness, and soon he was running. Light as a feather. Light as moonlight.
Winshur didn’t slow as he approached the colonel. He went faster, faster still, and tackled Genial below the waist. Genial slammed against the railing with a grunt, bending backward into the open air. Winshur heaved, lifted the taller man up, tipping him over the bridge railing. He did it quickly, before he could think. Before he could change his mind.
Genial’s eyes widened in confusion, and then shock. His arms windmilled for balance, but it was too late. He was falling.
He tumbled through the Coronet City night, away from Winshur, away from the bridge. He struck the chill waters below without ever uttering a sound.
Winshur leaned against the rail, panting. Watching with terrible vision to see if the blue-eyed man would resurface.
He waited minutes.
Nothing.
He waited a little longer.
Still nothing and he found himself laughing. Louder, gasping for air, hysterical and wild.
He knew that if someone heard him now, they would think him insane. But he was the sanest he had ever been.
Was it that easy to vanquish your nightmares? Why hadn’t he known? Why hadn’t anyone told him?
He scanned the streets around him but saw no one.
Easy to explain, he thought to himself. Genial had slipped and fallen. Or the real traitors had gotten him, and Winshur had tried his best to fight them off. Look at the blow to his face that he had taken in the colonel’s defense. Or perhaps he had never even seen Genial this night.
Yes, that was it. He would just pretend this never happened.
No. That was the old Winshur talking. The new Winshur could do better. He could find Monti Calay and drag the traitor to First Order justice himself. Then what would high command say? They would have to absolve him, maybe even give him that promotion, make him a hero. All he needed was Monti Calay’s personnel file and home address in the records back at his office.
A smile leaked across his face, bright as shadow.
He was done with being afraid, done with cowering.
Darkness fell like a blanket around him, and at first, he thought it was his doing somehow. He looked around himself, amazed. Somehow, the lights in the big house on the hill had all gone out.
He gaped for a moment, exhilarated.
And then he was running as fast as he could, back to his office.
WEDGE AND THE REST of the team followed Yama Dex through the sprawling campus of the Corellian Engineering Corporation. It consisted of three identical skytowers and all the adjoining gardens and water features that connected the buildings in a sort of industrial park. Wedge remembered that Coronet City, and Corellia itself, had always been a unique mix of the environmentally conscious and the unabashedly industrial. The city combined flora and fabrication with a kind of hubris that Wedge had always admired. He’d never seen another planet do it so well. Of course, maybe he was biased. He had grown up here.
They reached the dormitory building, which looked like all the other buildings surrounding it. Despite the lush grounds, there was something decidedly unfriendly in the design of these particular structures, something that screamed utility but lacked warmth. He said as much to Norra and she shrugged.
“Built by engineers,” she offered. “Maybe they were more worried about function.”
It made him miss his farm with its eclectic kitchen and colorful dishes. He was sure all the dishes here were a uniform colorless gray.
Yama pulled up short, looking back over her shoulder.
Nasz peered around the corner. “Guards at the entrance,” she whispered. “We need to take them out.”
Wedge said, “Let’s try to keep the noise to a minimum.”
“I can do that. Give me five minutes.” Nasz shouldered her rifle and slunk off into the shadows.
They counted the five minutes down, tense as tauntauns.
Nasz came back promptly on the five. She motioned them forward, and they all followed. They stepped over the bodies of the guards. One had the side of his head bashed in, and the other had been garroted. Wedge tried not to wince, but Nasz caught him looking and grinned, showing her blue teeth.
“One day I’ll ask you about Rattatak,” he said.
“Please do.”
“Dormitory F is up six levels,” Yama said. “Do we take the lift?”
“Stairs,” Wedge said. They’d avoid lifts from here out if they could. Too easy to be ambushed while stuffed in a tiny metal box.
Floor F was a soulless industrial wasteland that made the grounds outside that Wedge had thought cold look downright welcoming. Rows of featureless doors greeted them, tiny barred windows at eye level their only feature.
“A prison,” Nasz said as she reached out to try a handle. “What did I tell you?”
“How do we know where Ransolm is?”
“Prisoner 876549C?” Snap asked. “I guess we go door-to-door.”
“No, there’s an office somewhere,” Nasz said. “And in that office, there’s a list. I’m telling you, it’s the Imperial way, which means it’s the First Order way, too. Authoritarians thrive on paperwork. Somewhere, there’s a list.”
Wedge wasn’t convinced, but she had figured out where to look in the records to get them this far, so he didn’t argue. “Go search for the list,” he said. “We’ll start knocking on doors.”
They split up, Snap taking one side and Norra the other. Wedge and Yama started on opposite ends. Most knocks yielded no responses. Either the rooms were empty or the occupants were slee
ping. One knock produced a bloodcurdling scream that made them all shiver, and then more responses came after that. Some weeping, others begging. But no answers came to the name Ransolm, which they had each whispered as they moved methodically down the halls.
“We can’t leave them,” Norra said, once they met in the center. “This is awful. And these people are our allies. We can’t leave them.”
Wedge felt the same. “So we get them all out.”
“Can we fit them all on the shuttle?” Snap asked.
“Not in the shuttle we came on, but there’s a whole bay full of ships back there. We’ll figure out something.”
“What if they don’t want to come?” Yama asked.
“Why wouldn’t they want to come?” Snap asked, face puzzled. “You think they want to stay in a First Order prison?”
“No, but not everyone wants to join the Resistance.”
“They won’t have to join,” Wedge told her. “That’s not how it works.”
“We get them out,” Norra said, “and we let them decide. They can come with us and try to get offplanet in a hurry, or they can go their own way. Either way is better than these cages.” She shuddered.
“Agreed,” Wedge said. “Now how do we get the doors open?”
An alarm shattered the night, three sharp bursts of a warning, and then the doors all opened at once. They stood, staring.
Nasz came around the corner at a run. “Found the office,” she said. “There was a big button marked for emergencies, so I pushed it.” She put her hands on her hips. “Look at that.”
Slowly, people were emerging from their cells. Most looked confused, wary.
“Did you find Prisoner 876549C?”
“Cell eight.”
Cell 8 was some distance down the hall. Wedge made his way over, unsure what he would find. Behind him he could hear Norra and Snap explaining to the prisoners that they were free.
A man was emerging from cell 8. He was tall and gaunt like the others, but he had a presence, even now. His sandy hair had gone to gray. He had been washed and shaved recently, although not kindly by the look of the cuts on his face. He looked up at Wedge with intelligent but wary blue eyes.
“Ransolm?” Wedge asked. “Ransolm Casterfo?”
The man didn’t acknowledge the name, but his eyes stayed fixed on Wedge.
“Are you Ransolm Casterfo?” Wedge tried again, trying to keep his voice gentle, the way he might for a scared cadet back at the academy.
“I was once,” the man finally said, his voice a dry and painful whisper. “But no one has called me by that name in a very long time.”
Wedge’s shoulders dropped in relief. They had found him. “A friend sent me to free you.”
Ransolm frowned, deep lines forming at his mouth. “I have no friends. My name is a curse, a bad omen. I am forsaken.”
Wedge shook his head. “No, Senator.”
Ransolm flinched at the title, and Wedge wished he could take it back.
He tried a different approach. “We’ve been sent by Leia Organa to find you.”
“Leia…” He breathed the name like a prayer. And then, “They told me she was dead.”
“She’s very much alive,” Wedge said reassuringly. “And she wants you to come with us. And I don’t mean to pressure you, but I expect the First Order to show up any minute, so maybe we can discuss the details on the way.”
Ransolm blinked. “Yes,” he said quietly. “Best not to keep royalty waiting.”
“Wedge.” It was Snap. “I just received a communication from Karé back at the shuttle. She said a message came in via Ryloth. Poe’s team has lost their ship.”
“Lost?”
“There was some sort of commotion in the background, Karé said. She couldn’t catch the details. Bottom line, they’re stuck.”
“Tell them to rendezvous here. We’ll get them off the planet.”
“How?” His eyes roved across the prisoners standing in the hall. “We’re going to have trouble with the people we have now.”
Wedge thought of that blockade runner that he’d spied when they first arrived. “We’ll think of something. How many are coming with us?”
“Eleven. The other four prefer to be on their own.”
“And the SUBVERSIVES list? Did Dameron get the list?”
“Unclear.”
Wedge rubbed at his cheek, worried.
Footsteps, and Wedge turned to see Norra running down the hall. “Someone’s coming,” she said, breathless, blaster in hand.
Wedge nodded. “Tell Karé to get Poe’s team over here to our coordinates now. We’ll hold as long as we can, but we’ve got to get these prisoners off the planet. They’re in no shape to fight.”
“And if he doesn’t make it?”
“Tell Dameron that’s not an option. He comes here. Now.”
WINSHUR ALMOST DIDN’T SEE the traitors.
He was so intent on getting back to his office and getting hold of Monti Calay’s personnel file that his mind was somewhere else entirely. He caught a flash of orange hair and stopped in his tracks.
Yama. She was alive. Right here in front of him. And this was all her fault.
If she hadn’t gone to Genial. If she hadn’t provoked him.
Why did she constantly labor to vex him?
A film of rage darkened his vision. He should have killed her, crushed her head in when he had the chance. It was not too late.
The breadth of his audacity astounded him, and for a moment a sliver of doubt crept back in, the barest suggestion that he was a murderer contemplating yet another murder and that it was wrong.
And then he looked back at her, sneaking through the grounds, obviously doing something she was not supposed to be doing, and doubt fled. She had been put back in his path for a reason.
He watched her move stealthily through the night. Her pace was hesitant, and she paused at corners and in puddles of shadow to scout her way. Every so often she’d look back to whatever was behind her and then move forward again.
She headed down an underground passage that he knew ran beneath the main campus and to the far entrance to the shipyard. Why would she be going to the shipyard at this time of night? The reason didn’t matter to him, but it felt all the more fortuitous. There were many ways one could come to harm in a shipyard.
He slipped from his own shadows and followed her.
Down they went into the long narrow walkway. The lights here buzzed low and disparate overhead, blinking uncertainly to illuminate the cold concrete underfoot in sporadic bursts. Winshur squinted through the poor light looking for her, but she had disappeared.
Impossible.
He hurried his pace, moving in and out of the darkness, looking frantically for a head of unruly orange curls. But he saw nothing. Just a long stretch of empty tunnel before him.
He was about to turn around and chalk the episode up to some kind of strange delusion brought on by the revelations of the night when she stepped from a maintenance alcove he had somehow missed before. She held a long stretch of metal pipe in her hand and her face, a face bruised by his boot, was set in determined lines.
He grinned. This was better than he could have expected. Killing an innocent was one thing, but a fight, an actual fight—well, no one could fault him for defending himself.
He walked forward, hands spread. “You must be angry with me,” he said, hoping to lure her closer. “But do you remember what I told you, Yama, about power coming from discipline? I was disciplining you.” It was a lie, of course. He had only meant to hurt her, to make her suffer, as he always had. But it sounded good coming from his lips, and he clung to it.
Her grip tightened on the pipe. A memory of her standing the same way, a box cutter in her hand, flashed through his mind. Understanding dawned. She must have confronted Mont
i in his office, must have been threatening him with that blade when Winshur interrupted them. She had tried to tell him something, he remembered, but he assumed it was more excuses for why she wasn’t working. Perhaps if he’d listened, things would be very different right now. Or perhaps she would have told him lies.
“You told me discipline meant controlling your baser instincts,” she said.
He hesitated. “I did…”
“But you didn’t!”
Her voice was a wail, a plea for understanding. She still admires me, he thought. She still wants me to guide her. Something shifted inside him, something shameful that he thought he had suppressed. Nausea rose like a wave in his gut.
“You beat me,” she continued, “for no other reason than because you were angry, at yourself, your own weakness, and you took it out on me!”
“I…” Winshur blinked, feeling unmoored. Where was the darkness that had sustained him moments ago? The boldness?
“No,” he said, finding his footing again. “I did it for your own good.” But he remembered the horror he had felt, the loathing. “For your own good,” he repeated, as if to convince himself.
He was close enough now to see that he had broken her nose and blacked her eye. Her bottom lip was split, too. He swallowed nervously at the sight of his own handiwork.
“Don’t come any closer,” she warned. She shifted her grip on the pipe, her hands sweating.
He took a step forward. “Yama,” he whispered, her name echoing in the tunnel. He wasn’t sure what he meant to do when he reached her. Hit her? Snatch the pipe from her hands and beat her with it? Or fall to his knees and ask for forgiveness.
She swung.
He sidestepped her attempt, but she reversed, bringing the pipe up for a downward strike, and he wasn’t fast enough to avoid it. He took the blow across the shoulder. Pain radiated from the contact, and his rage bubbled up to the surface again. He grabbed at the pipe, catching it mid-swing. He wrenched it from her hands. Yama, pulled forward by the momentum, fell to her knees.
He stood over her, panting. The crude weapon was his now, and while he told himself he took no pleasure in defeating a child, a strange delight suffused his body. It warred with his other emotions, the shame, the confusion.
Resistance Reborn (Star Wars) Page 27
