The Last Command

by Timothy Zahn

  “If you’re determined to make yourself a target, Padawan, at least wait until we hit the beach.”

  Rubbing her head, the petite, blue-eyed young woman glanced over her shoulder at the tall female Jedi standing behind her. “You see, Master. He does care.”

  “Despite all evidence to the contrary,” the female Jedi said.

  “I only meant that it’ll be easier for me to bury you in the sand,” Shryne said.

  Starstone scowled, folded her arms across her chest, and swung away from both of them.

  Bol Chatak threw Shryne a look of mild reprimand. The raised cowl of her black robe hid her short vestigial horns. An Iridonian Zabrak, she was nothing if not tolerant, and had never taken Shryne to task for his irascible behavior or interfered with his teasing relationship with her Padawan, who had joined Chatak in the Murkhana system only a standard week earlier, arriving with Master Loorne and two Jedi Knights. The demands of the Outer Rim Sieges had drawn so many Jedi from Coruscant that the Temple was practically deserted.

  Until recently, Shryne, too, had had a Padawan learner …

  For the Jedi’s benefit, the gunship pilot announced that they were closing on the jump site.

  “Weapons check!” Salvo said to the platoon. “Gas and packs!”

  As the troop bay filled with the sound of activating weapons, Chatak placed her hand on Starstone’s quivering shoulder.

  “Use your unease to sharpen your senses, Padawan.”

  “I will, Master.”

  “The Force will be with you.”

  “We’re all dying,” Salvo told the troopers. “Promise yourselves you’ll be the last to go!”

  Access panels opened in the ceiling, dropping more than a dozen polyplast cables to within reach of the troopers.

  “Secure to lines!” Salvo said. “Room for three more, General,” he added while armored, body-gloved hands took tight hold of the cables.

  Calculating that the jump wouldn’t exceed ten meters, Shryne shook his head at Salvo. “No need. We’ll see you below.”

  Unexpectedly, the gunship gained altitude as it approached the shoreline, then pulled up short of the beach, as if being reined in. Repulsorlifts engaged, the gunship hovered. At the same time, hundreds of Separatist battle droids marched onto the beach, firing their blasters in unison.

  The intercom squawked, and the pilot said, “Droid buster away!”

  A concussion-feedback weapon, the droid buster detonated at five meters above ground zero, flattening every droid within a radius of fifty meters. Similar explosions underscored the ingress of a dozen other gunships.

  “Where were these weapons three years ago?” one of the troopers asked Salvo.

  “Progress,” the commander said. “All of a sudden we’re winning the war in a week.”

  The gunship hovered lower, and Shryne leapt into the air. Using the Force to oversee his fall, he landed in a crouch on the compacted sand, as did Chatak and Starstone, if less expertly.

  Salvo and the clone troopers followed, descending one-handed on individual cables, triggering their rifles as they slid to the beach. When the final trooper was on the ground, the gunship lifted its nose and began to veer away from shore. Up and down the beach the same scenario was playing out. Several gunships failed to escape artillery fire and crashed in flames before they had turned about.

  Others were blown apart before they had even offloaded.

  With projectiles and blaster bolts whizzing past their heads, the Jedi and troopers scurried forward, hunkering down behind a bulkhead that braced a ribbon of highway coursing between the beach and the near-vertical cliffs beyond. Salvo’s communications specialist comlinked for aerial support against the batteries responsible for the worst of the fire.

  Through an opening in the bulkhead hastened the four members of a commando team, with a captive in tow. Unlike the troopers, the commandos wore gray shells of Katarn-class armor and carried heftier weapons. Hardened against magnetic pulses, their suits allowed them to penetrate defensive shields.

  The enemy combatant they had captured wore a long robe and tasseled headcloth but lacked the sallow complexion, horizontal facial markings, and cranial horns characteristic of the Koorivar. Like their fellow Separatists the Neimoidians, Passel Argente’s species had no taste for warfare, but felt no compunction about employing the best mercenaries credits could buy.

  The burly commando squad leader went immediately to Salvo.

  “Ion Team, Commander, attached to the Twenty-second out of Boz Pity.” Turning slightly in Shryne’s direction, the commando nodded his helmeted head.

  “Welcome to Murkhana, General Shryne.”

  Shryne’s dark brows beetled. “The voice is familiar …,” he began.

  “The face even more so,” the commando completed.

  The joke was almost three years old but still in use among the clone troopers, and between them and the Jedi.

  “Climber,” the commando said, providing his sobriquet. “We fought together on Deko Neimoidia.”

  Shryne clapped the commando on the shoulder. “Good to see you again, Climber—even here.”

  “As I told you,” Chatak said to Starstone, “Master Shryne has friends all over.”

  “Perhaps they don’t know him as well as I do, Master,” Starstone grumbled.

  Climber lifted his helmet faceplate to the gray sky. “A good day for fighting, General.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Shryne said.

  “Make your report, squad leader,” Salvo interrupted.

  Climber turned to the commander. “The Koorivar are evacuating the city, but taking their sweet time about it. They’ve a lot more faith in these energy shields than they should have.” He beckoned the captive forward and spun him roughly to face Salvo. “Meet Idis—human under the Koorivar trappings. Distinguished member of the Vibroblade Brigade.”

  “A mercenary band,” Bol Chatak explained to Starstone.

  “We caught him … with his trousers down,” Climber continued, “and persuaded him to share what he knows about the shoreline defenses. He was kind enough to provide the location of the landing platform shield generator.” The commando indicated a tall, tapered edifice farther down the beach. “Just north of the first bridge, near the marina. The generator’s installed two floors below ground level. We may have to take out the whole building to get to it.”

  Salvo signaled to his comlink specialist. “Relay the building coordinates to Gallant gunnery—”

  “Wait on that,” Shryne said quickly. “Targeting the building poses too great a risk to the bridges. We need them intact if we’re going to move vehicles into the city.”

  Salvo considered it briefly. “A surgical strike, then.”

  Shryne shook his head no. “There’s another reason for discretion. That building is a medcenter. Or at least it was the last time I was here.”

  Salvo looked to Climber for confirmation.

  “The general’s correct, Commander. It’s still a medcenter.”

  Salvo shifted his gaze to Shryne. “An enemy medcenter, General.”

  Shryne compressed his lips and nodded. “Even at this point in the war, patients are considered noncombatants. Remember what I said about hearts and minds, Commander.” He glanced at the mercenary. “Is the shield generator accessible from street level?”

  “Depends on how skilled you are.”

  Shryne looked at Climber.

  “Not a problem,” the commando said.

  Salvo made a sound of distaste. “You’d trust the word of a merc?”

  Climber pressed the muzzle of his DC-17 rifle into the small of the mercenary’s back. “Idis is on our side now, aren’t you?”

  The mercenary’s head bobbed. “Free of charge.”

  Shryne looked at Climber again. “Is your team carrying enough thermal detonators to do the job?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Salvo still didn’t like it. “I strongly recommend that we leave this to the Gallant.”r />
  Shryne regarded him. “What’s the matter, Commander, we’re not killing the Separatists in sufficient numbers?”

  “In sufficient numbers, General. Just not quickly enough.”

  “The Gallant is still holding at fifty kilometers,” Chatak said in a conciliatory tone. “There’s time to re-con the building.”

  Salvo demonstrated his displeasure with a shrug of indifference. “It’s your funeral if you’re wrong.”

  “That’s neither here nor there,” Shryne said. “We’ll rendezvous with you at rally point Aurek-Bacta. If we don’t turn up by the time the Gallant arrives, feed them the building’s coordinates.”

  “You can count on it, sir.”

  REBELLION

  (0–5 YEARS AFTER STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)

  This is the period of the classic Star Wars movie trilogy—A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi—in which a ragtag band of Rebels battles the Empire, and Luke Skywalker learns the ways of the Force and must avoid his father’s fate.

  During this time, the Empire controls nearly the entire settled galaxy. Out in the Rim worlds, Imperial stormtroopers suppress uprisings with brutal efficiency, many alien species have been enslaved, and entire star systems are brutally exploited by the Empire’s war machine. In the central systems, however, most citizens support the Empire, weighing misgivings about its harsh methods against the memories of the horror and chaos of the Clone Wars. Few dare to openly oppose Emperor Palpatine’s rule.

  But the Rebel Alliance is growing. Rebel cells strike in secret from hidden bases scattered among the stars, encouraging some of the braver Senators to speak out against the Empire. When the Rebels learn that the Empire is building the Death Star, a space station with enough firepower to destroy entire planets, Princess Leia Organa, who represents her homeworld, Alderaan, in the Senate and is secretly a high-ranking member of the Rebel Alliance, receives the plans for the battle station and flees in search of the exiled Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.

  Thus begin the events that lead her to meet the smuggler and soon-to-be hero Han Solo, to discover her long-lost brother, Luke Skywalker, and to help the Rebellion take down the Emperor and restore democracy to the galaxy: the events of the three films A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.

  If you’re a reader looking for places to jump in and explore the Rebellion-era novels, here are five great places to start:

  • Death Star, by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry: The story of the construction of the massive battle station, touching on the lives of the builders, planners, soldiers, and support staff who populate the monstrous vessel, as well as the masterminds behind the design and those who intend to make use of it: the Emperor and Darth Vader.

  • The Mandalorian Armor, by K. W. Jeter: The famous bounty hunter Boba Fett stars in a twisty tale of betrayal within the galactic underworld, highlighted by a riveting confrontation between bounty hunters and a band of Hutts.

  • Shadows of the Empire, by Steve Perry: A tale of the shadowy parts of the Empire and an underworld criminal mastermind who is out to kill Luke Skywalker, while our other heroes try to figure out how to rescue Han Solo, who has been frozen in carbonite for delivery to Jabba the Hutt.

  • Tales of the Bounty Hunters, edited by Kevin J. Anderson: The bounty hunters summoned by Darth Vader to capture the Millennium Falcon tell their stories in this anthology of short tales, culminating with Daniel Keys Moran’s elegiac “The Last One Standing.”

  • Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, by Matthew Stover: A tale set shortly after the events of Return of the Jedi, in which Luke must defeat the flamboyant dark sider known as Lord Shadowspawn while the pilots of Rogue Squadron duel his servants amid tumbling asteroids.

  Read on for an excerpt from a Star Wars novel set in the Rebellion era.

  Chapter One

  THE IMPERIAL STAR DESTROYER REPRISAL slipped silently through the blackness of space, preparing itself for action against the Rebel forces threatening to tear the galaxy apart.

  Standing on the command walkway, his hands clasped behind him, Captain Kendal Ozzel gazed out at the planet Teardrop directly ahead, a mixture of anticipation and dark brooding swirling through him. As far as he was concerned the entire planet was a snake pit, crawling with smugglers, third-rate pirate gangs, and other dregs of society. If he’d been in command of the Death Star instead of that idiot Tarkin, he mused, he would have picked someplace like Teardrop instead of Alderaan for the weapon’s first serious field test.

  But he hadn’t been in charge; and now both Tarkin and the Death Star were gone, blown to shrapnel off Yavin 4. In a single, awful moment the Rebel Alliance had morphed from a minor nuisance to a bitter enemy.

  And Imperial Center had responded. Less than three days ago the word had come down to show no mercy to either the Rebels or their sympathizers.

  Not that Ozzel would have shown any mercy at any rate. Eliminating Rebels, and Rebel sympathizers, had become the best and fastest way to success in the Imperial fleet. Perhaps all the way to an admiral’s rank bars. “Status?” he called behind him.

  “Forty-seven standard minutes to orbit, sir,” the navigation officer called from the crew pits.

  Ozzel nodded. “Keep a sharp watch,” he ordered. “No one gets off that planet.”

  He glowered at the faintly lit disk ahead of them. “No one,” he added softly.

  “Luke?” Han Solo called from the Millennium Falcon’s cockpit. “Come on, kid—move it. We’re on a tight schedule here.”

  “They’re in!” Luke Skywalker’s voice came back. “Ramp’s sealed.”

  Han already knew that from his control board readouts, of course. If the kid stuck around, he’d have to learn not to clutter the ship’s atmosphere with unnecessary chatter. “Okay, Chewie, hit it,” he said.

  Beside him Chewbacca gave a rolling trill of acknowledgment, and the Falcon lifted smoothly off the hard-packed Teardrop ground.

  Apparently not smoothly enough. From behind, Han heard a couple of muffled and rather indignant exclamations. “Hey!” someone shouted.

  Han rolled his eyes as he fed power to the sublight engines. “This is absolutely the last time we take on passengers,” he told his partner firmly.

  Chewbacca’s reply was squarely to the point and a shade on the disrespectful side.

  “No, I mean it,” Han insisted. “From now on, if they don’t pay, they don’t fly.”

  From behind him came footsteps, and he glanced back as Luke dropped into the seat behind Chewbacca. “They’re all settled,” he announced.

  “Great,” Han said sarcastically. “Once we make hyperspace, I’ll take their drink orders.”

  “Oh, come on,” Luke chided him. “Anyway, you think this bunch is stiff, you should have seen the ones who got out on the earlier transports. These are just the techs who were in charge of packing up the last few crates of equipment.”

  Han grimaced. Crates which were currently filling the Falcon’s holds, leaving no room for paying cargo even if he managed to find some on the way to the rendezvous. This was going to be a complete, 100 percent charity run, like everything else he and Chewbacca had done for Luke and his new friends in the Rebel Alliance. “Yeah, well, I’ve seen plenty of useless techs before,” he muttered.

  He was waiting for Luke to come to the techs’ defense when a splatter of laserfire ricocheted off the rear deflector. “What the—” he snarled, throwing the Falcon into a tight drop loop.

  The instinctive maneuver probably saved their skins. Another burst shot through the space they’d just left, this one coming from a different direction. Han twisted the ship back around, hoping fleetingly that their passengers were still strapped in, then took a second to check the aft display.

  One glance at the half dozen mismatched ships rising behind them was all he needed. “Pirates,” he snapped to the others, throwing power to the engines and angling the ship upward. Facing pirates deep inside a planet’s gravity w
ell, with no cover and no chance of quick escape to hyperspace, was about the worst situation a pilot could encounter.

  And even the Falcon couldn’t outmaneuver this many ships forever. “Chewie, get us up and out,” he said, throwing off his straps. “Come on, Luke.”

  The kid was already on it, heading down the cockpit tunnel at a dead run. Han followed, rounding the corner in time to see Luke duck past the passengers crammed into the wraparound seat and head up the ladder to the upper quad laser station. “Captain?” one of the passengers called.

  “Save it,” Han shot back, grabbing the ladder and sliding down toward the lower quads. He caught himself as the gravity around him did its ninety-degree shift, then dropped into the seat.

  It looked even worse from down here than it had from the cockpit. A second wave of pirate ships had joined the first, this group pumping laserfire all around the edges of the first group, forming a deadly cylinder of death around the Falcon’s flight vector. They were trying to force their prey to stay on that line so that the first group could chase them down.

  Well, they were in for a surprise. Keying the quads with one hand, he snagged his headset with the other and jammed it on. “Luke?”

  “I’m here. Any particular strategy, or do we just start with the biggest and see how fast we can blow them apart?”

  Han frowned as he got a grip on the control yoke, an odd idea whispering at him. The way that second wave was positioned … “You go for that big lead ship,” he said. “I’m going to try something cute.”

  Luke’s reply was a blast of laserfire squarely into the lead pirate’s bow.

  The other ship swerved violently in reaction—clearly, they hadn’t expected this kind of firepower from a simple light freighter. The pilot recovered quickly, though, settling the ship back into its position in the battle array. The entire lead wave moved closer together, closing ranks to get maximum protection from their overlapping shields. Han watched closely, waiting for the obvious next move, and heard the twitter from his display board as the lead ships all shifted shield power to doublefront.