Spark of the Resistance

by Justina Ireland

  Lieutenant Aderat swallowed nervously, and the sheen of perspiration on his forehead increased noticeably. “Yes, sir. As of dawn this morning, we, um, have not been able to locate the laboratory on Minfar. The resistance forces keep forcing us to retreat.”

  Commander Spiftz, who had been headed back to his chair, spun on his heel. “What? The Resistance is on Minfar?”

  “Uh, no, sir, we don’t think they’re actually part of the larger Resistance effort that we’ve been tracking. These fighters are less organized. Just a bunch of local rabble, sir.”

  “And yet these disorganized fighters have managed to keep you from establishing a foothold on this backwater planet of theirs,” Spiftz said.

  The lieutenant’s eyes widened as he realized he’d made yet another mistake. Before he could respond, Commander Spiftz continued. “Have you been able to track where these local rabble are holed up?”

  “Um, no, sir. They just . . . disappear.”

  Commander Spiftz raised an eyebrow and took a menacing step closer to his subordinate. “They disappear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Commander Spiftz laughed, the sound ugly and not at all amused. “What, are you suggesting that you’re fighting a bunch of Jedi, able to project themselves from place to place like Luke Skywalker?” It was clear from Spiftz’s tone that he didn’t believe the Skywalker story, and what self-respecting First Order officer would? The Force was a myth, no more real than the supposedly terrible powers of Lord Vader. It was just another story told to keep unruly children in line. No matter what other First Order officers might believe, Spiftz was a man of intellect. He didn’t believe in the Force, and he didn’t believe that his junior officer could be such a fool.

  Aderat stammered out some worthless excuse, his face growing alarmingly red. Spiftz waved his hand.

  “Enough, Lieutenant. I find I have no more patience for your ineptitude. You are dismissed.”

  The lieutenant nodded and beat a hasty retreat from the command deck.

  As soon as the man had disappeared from sight, Commander Spiftz turned to a lieutenant with warm brown skin and close-cropped curls. “Lieutenant Nivers.”

  The woman jumped to attention, her seat spinning from the force of her movement. “Yes, sir!”

  “Congratulations, Lieutenant. I’m promoting you to expeditionary forces. Please tell Lieutenant Aderat he is relieved of duty. He can return to scrubbing pots in the galley. You are now in charge of the force on Minfar.”

  Nivers’s eyes widened in abject terror, but then her expression steeled and she gave a short nod. “I will not let you down, sir,” she said, before turning on her heel and departing the same way Aderat had.

  “You know the girl has no idea how to lead any kind of ground force, Branwayne. She’s a strategy analyst, not a stormtrooper.”

  “And if she fails, someone else will step forward to take her place, just as she did with Aderat.”

  Commander Spiftz looked over at Professor Glenna Kip. A tall, willowy woman, not quite human based on the greenish tint of her skin and the tiny scales that covered her face but also not any species Commander Spiftz had encountered in his years of military service. A gold-and-green scarf covered her head, and golden swirls marked her high cheekbones and outlined her eyes. That provided an odd counterpoint to her white smock, which seemed odd compared with the uniforms of the First Order. Whether the golden markings on the professor’s skin were makeup or natural to her people, Spiftz didn’t know. He also didn’t care. His relationship with the scientist was purely professional, and he valued her technical insight more than her appearance.

  Professor Glenna Kip was no First Order officer, but she was highly intelligent and worth every credit she was paid.

  She’d been the one to ask him to lead this mission to a forgotten sector of the galaxy. Of course, she was not the one who mentioned that there were experimental laboratories on Minfar. That had been Commander Janson Hidreck, Branwayne’s former friend and current adversary. When Hidreck had been assigned a Star Destroyer, Commander Spiftz had been jealous. He was the one who deserved to command such a mighty ship, not her.

  Getting approval for a mission to Minfar hadn’t been easy. Most of the other officers had laughed at Commander Hidreck’s stories of forgotten tech on a far-off planet and the Echo Horn, a legendary weapon like no other. Hidreck’s father had been a scientist in the labs long ago, so she was the logical choice to head the mission, but Glenna Kip had pulled Spiftz aside and convinced him it should be him, not Hidreck.

  And he’d agreed—not because the stories Hidreck told sounded true; they sounded like farfetched fairy tales, like those silly stories of Lord Vader and the Force. But Glenna Kip was far older than she looked, and she had made a compelling argument. There were rumors she’d done work for the Empire back before the New Republic, although Spiftz doubted that the vaunted Empire ever would have let a nonhuman near one of its labs. But the scientist was incredibly knowledgeable, and the intel seemed like it was at least worth investigating.

  Even if Hidreck was the one who had brought up the matter first.

  Besides, Commander Spiftz knew to seize an opportunity when one presented itself, especially if it would give him a chance to show up his rival.

  So he’d managed to secure a light cruiser, the Ladara Vex, complete with a crew, fifty stormtroopers, and nearly a full squadron of TIE fighters. It wasn’t much, but it should’ve been enough to subdue whatever primitive forces occupied Minfar, a place that had no visible infrastructure and no history of any kind of culture. And yet there they were, several days after settling into orbit around the green-and-red planet, without even a hint of a base established on the planet’s surface.

  “Do you have anything for me, Madame Kip?” Spiftz asked. “I do believe I requested an update on the possible location of the Imperial laboratories.”

  “Professor Kip,” the woman corrected, her words firm even though her tone was mild. “Yes, I do have new information on Minfar.” She smiled slightly. “Can you spare a moment?”

  “Anything to ensure the mission’s success,” Commander Spiftz said, following Glenna as she wound her way between flight terminals toward her laboratory.

  Commander Spiftz was almost to the doorway leading to the main corridor when one of the techs called out: “Commander Spiftz, we have an unidentified ship that just came out of hyperspace nearby.”

  Commander Spiftz waved a dismissive hand. “There’s absolutely no reason anyone should be in this sector. It’s probably just a lost freighter. Send a couple of TIE fighters after it until I return.”

  Commander Spiftz followed Glenna Kip out of the command bay, giving the random ship not a single additional thought.

  THE FALCON CAME OUT of hyperspace with a slight jolt, jostling Poe awake. A porg flew off his head, and he ran his fingers through his hair to make sure it hadn’t left a nest behind. Below him, BB-8 beeped merrily, and Poe stretched out and yawned.

  “It was just a small nap, and yes, I slept fine.” As an X-wing pilot, Poe had learned long ago that being able to sleep whenever, wherever was a huge benefit. Disaster had a way of sneaking up on you, and being well rested was always a plus.

  Poe yawned once more, and just as he finished rubbing sleep out of his eyes, proximity sensors began beeping—loudly.

  Rey rushed into the cockpit, taking the pilot’s seat. “What’s going on?”

  “That’s what’s going on,” Poe said, pointing at the four TIE fighters approaching rapidly.

  BB-8 beeped in dismay, and Rey strapped herself in. “I guess the call for help wasn’t a trap after all.”

  “Or it was, and this is the welcoming committee,” Poe said.

  “Maybe they just want to talk it out?” she joked.

  The TIE fighters fired on them without warning, and Rey quickly maneuvered the Falcon out of the way of the blasts. Poe gripped his harness and held on until the ride smoothed out a bit. A few of the porgs inside the cockpit f
led with a chorus of dismayed trills, their wings beating as they flew to less chaotic spaces.

  “I think that’s a no,” Poe said wryly.

  “What’s going on?” Rose said over the intercom. “I’m trying to give this engine a tune-up and we’re jumping all over the place.”

  “We’ve got company of the First Order variety. Rose, get to the top gun. Poe, can you grab the belly gun?”

  Poe opened his mouth, and Rey stopped him by holding up her hand. “I can handle the flying,” she said.

  “I was just going to offer,” Poe said, throwing her a winning smile before dashing down the corridor toward the gun bays. BB-8 beeped a reprimand after him, but he ignored the droid. Poe was too happy to be back in action to care much about the rebuke. Supply runs were okay, but blowing things up was even better.

  Poe liked explosions, especially when the First Order was on the receiving end.

  He really, really missed his X-wing.

  The Falcon tilted suddenly, throwing Poe against the wall of the corridor.

  “Sorry!” Rey called over the intercom. “We’re going to have to start firing back or things are going to get very ugly.”

  “On it!” Rose called.

  The sound of the top gun firing filled Poe with a sense of relief. He made his way to the ladder that led to the gun bays, gripping each side and sliding rather than stepping down the rungs. In less than two seconds he sat in the ventral gunner’s seat and strapped in. The gun took a few moments to warm up, and then two of the TIE fighters appeared on his screen.

  “Rey, can you take them on a bit of a chase?” Poe asked. “I don’t have a clear shot.”

  “Yep. There’s an ice ring a little ways away,” Rey said. “Looks like there’s some decent cover in there. I can try and make a run for it. But I don’t know if they’ll follow.”

  “Oh, they’ll follow,” Poe said with a grin. “If there’s one thing the First Order likes, it’s a fight.”

  “Why do you sound so happy about this?” Rose asked.

  “Because every day we get to hurt them a little bit is a good day,” Poe said, firing at one of the TIE fighters as it came too close. The shots missed, and Poe watched the TIE fighter speed by. The enemy ships were flying so much faster than the Falcon. Poe and his friends were going to have to get creative. He hoped Rey could maneuver the ship in a way the First Order didn’t expect, opening up a few shots.

  “All right, hold on,” Rey said.

  The Falcon tilted sharply to the right as Rey began a zigzagging approach to the ice ring. On Poe’s display the TIE fighters followed, their turns faster than but not nearly as controlled as Rey’s. One of the TIE fighters tried to overcompensate, and Poe fired as the targeting system locked on. Through the gun window, he saw the TIE fighter explode in shades of red and white, the display making Poe’s heart glad.

  “Got him!” Rey shouted in approval, and Poe had just enough time to whoop before the Falcon shuddered and shook.

  “And it looks like one of them got us, as well,” Rose said.

  Poe sighed. It was always something.

  The Falcon tilted once more, this time to the left. Poe tried shooting at the TIE fighters, but their turns were more controlled now, and the targeting system refused to lock.

  “Yah!” Rose shouted from the nearby bay, and another explosion echoed dully through the Falcon. “I got one. You’re getting rusty, Poe.”

  “What?” Poe exclaimed, his chair swiveling as the targeting system tried to lock on to the TIE fighters zooming past.

  “Come on, Poe! You can do it,” Rey said over the intercom.

  Poe gritted his teeth. He knew they were just teasing him, but he really, really missed flying.

  The Falcon swayed, dipping this way and that as Rey took them through the ice ring toward Minfar. Poe’s gun display was a mess of red lines and speeding triangles but nothing close to being a good shot. At that rate, those last two TIE fighters were going to end up getting the better of them.

  The Falcon lurched, explosions echoing through the ship as the TIE fighters fired on them. There were heavier thuds, as well, as Rey steered them into several chunks of ice. They began to spin, and Poe gripped the gun controls tightly. A porg flew past, screeching in dismay as it tried to account for the chaotic motion of the ship. “What are we doing, Rey?” he called, a tendril of worry filtering through his bravado.

  “I just lost power to four of the engines. I’m trying to get out of this ice field, but we’re slowing,” Rey said. There was worry in her voice, too.

  “Poe, you cover those last two ships. I’ll get down there and check out the engines,” Rose shouted, jumping down from the gun bay. Poe took a deep breath and let it out.

  Two TIE fighters left. It should’ve been like shooting bala fish in a tank. But the Falcon was swooping and diving as Rey fought to maintain control. Poe had flown an unresponsive ship before. It was no easy task, and yet Rey had somehow managed to keep them steady and clear of the TIE fighters.

  Poe was impressed.

  “Rey, can you double back around and give me one clear shot?” Poe asked.

  “Doing my best!” Rey called. The Falcon tilted suddenly as the TIE fighters began to close in, Rey giving Poe the perfect angle to lock on to an unwary enemy ship.

  Poe pressed the firing mechanism and was rewarded with a brilliant display of red and orange sparks flying in every direction as the TIE fighter exploded.

  “You got one more, Poe,” Rey said. “I’m going to kill the engines. Make them think we’re done.”

  “Good idea,” Poe said as the engines suddenly cut out. Poe watched as the TIE fighter blazed past, firing with reckless abandon. He hated not trying to take the shot, but if he wanted to make the TIE fighter believe they had no power he was going to have to pretend that he couldn’t shoot, either.

  The TIE fighter flew past once, twice. On the third time past, the enemy ship slowed enough that Poe had a perfect lock. This time he didn’t hesitate, firing wildly. The remaining TIE fighter exploded, and over the intercom Rey cheered.

  “Great shooting, Poe! I’m going to get us out of this ice ring.”

  “Got it,” Poe said, climbing out of the chair and heading back to the cockpit. “We need to get to Minfar before we have any more company. I’m sure there are more TIE fighters where those came from.”

  “That’s probably for the best,” Rose said over the comm. “Because we’re down to five engine units, and it’s not looking good. One of the TIE fighter blasts hit the compressor housing. It’s cracked and causing the engines to malfunction. The rest of the engines could die at any moment. The sooner we get someplace safe, the better.”

  Poe walked down the corridor toward the cockpit and tried not to let the worry he felt creep in any farther. If something happened to them, there were a lot of supplies that wouldn’t get to the Resistance, and the last thing he wanted to do was let down General Organa again.

  “Well, let’s hope Rey can land us safely before those remaining engines go,” Poe said as BB-8 rolled along behind him. There was no way they’d be able to outfly or outmaneuver another group of TIE fighters with only five of the nine final-stage engine units. And without

  any engines, they would be in a lot of danger. The faster they found the people who had put out the call for help, the better.

  Before they were the ones who needed help.

  COMMANDER SPIFTZ looked at the map projected onto the table and crossed his arms. Professor Glenna Kip’s expression was serene, her wide blue eyes and pale green skin showing no discernible emotion, but Spiftz could tell she was pleased by the way she kept tapping the map overlay.

  “You found these in the archives from the Empire?” he asked, still not quite sure where the plans had come from.

  “My personal archives,” she purred. “I have been a scientist for a very, very long time.”

  Spiftz turned back to the hologram on the map table. Minfar spun in a lazy rotation, the faint gr
een and red of the projection nowhere near as vibrant as the planet visible outside the light cruiser’s viewports. But the hologram was merely a point of reference for Glenna’s plan.

  “Your stormtroopers have been looking here, here, and here for the laboratory,” Glenna said, blue spots of color appearing on the map as she spoke. “And so far, they’ve found nothing.”

  “These were the coordinates that you provided to us,” Spiftz said, his temper fraying just a bit. Soon his superiors would be asking for a status report. He could not tell General Hux his stormtroopers had been routed by a local population that didn’t even use blasters. He’d end up getting reassigned to a supply depot on Hynestia.

  “Yes,” Glenna said, dragging Commander Spiftz’s attention back to the map and away from his possibly grim future. “But I was mistaken. Please understand, Branwayne, that the weapons development that occurred on Minfar was not an approved program. Most of the Empire had no idea there was any work even happening here. So the record keeping was not incredibly detailed. My maps are inexact.”

  Commander Spiftz straightened his uniform, touching his perfect hair self-consciously. The way Glenna Kip used his first name always made him feel a little uncertain, as though she thought him a child and not a commanding officer of the First Order.

  “So, now you think we should target our efforts in a different area?” Spiftz said, peering at the yellow spot that appeared on the map.

  “Yes. I found a document talking about an evacuation point for the research team, and this was the location given. I believe that somewhere in this area is the entrance to the laboratories.”

  “And just how certain are you?” Commander Spiftz said. He didn’t want to waste any more time looking for the lab in the wrong place. He’d been promised a weapon like no other, and he was determined to have it.

  “As certain as one can be. But I believe that I could be of more use on the ground, directing your troops where to look.”