She breathed a sigh of relief when they’d crossed under the archway and were headed out into the wilds. Beyond exhausted and pretty sick of carrying a heavy helmet, she couldn’t wait to get to camp. When Zade stopped, she spun around and whispered, “What do you think you’re doing?”
He held up a finger, swooped his scarf out of the way, vomited up at least a liter of alcohol, wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand, and said, “Getting rid of excess baggage. Feel better already. Do you have any water, wherever it is you’re taking me? I’m assuming you didn’t drag me all the way out here for some strange sort of ritual murder, but I’m not holding my breath.”
She rolled her eyes. “If I wanted you dead, you’d already be dead.”
“I got that idea by watching you commit murder, actually.”
Vi looked toward the outpost, which was still dark and silent.
“Look, I heard you talking in the cantina. Sounded like you might be sympathetic to the Resistance.”
“The Resistance.” He said it like it was a very fancy sort of party to which he hadn’t been invited. “I heard most of that got wiped out.”
Vi shrugged and started walking again. He’d either follow now or he wouldn’t, and either way it was out of her hands. When she heard his boots crunching along behind her, she smiled to herself.
“Most of the Resistance did get wiped out by the First Order, but that’s the tricky thing about doing what’s right and fighting the good fight: People just keep doing it no matter what.”
He hummed a musical sigh. “And judging by the fact that you killed those troopers and claimed their bucket and haven’t yet issued me a citation, I’m led to assume you’re one of those people?”
“Well now, that depends.” Vi looked back over her shoulder. “You never said if you were sympathetic or not. Plenty of people talk the talk, but it’s harder to walk the walk.”
“I hate walking.”
She laughed. He was quick; she’d give him that. “We have ships for that.”
“I suppose this Resistance of yours sounds fun,” he finally said, “by which I mean it doesn’t, and it might actually be a lot of work.”
Vi shrugged. “Like most jobs, it has its ups and downs. One thing we could really use is help recruiting. Bringing in some locals, maybe catching the attention of folk just passing through. And you seem like a fellow who’d like to stick it to the First Order.”
Zade was walking beside her, his step more certain now that he’d gotten rid of the liquor. He chuckled low, and Vi assumed it was the sort of sound that made most women swoon. It did not work on her.
“I would like to stick it to the First Order, but I know that guerrilla groups rarely pay well, and I like being paid. I especially like being paid so that I can get my ship back and not get stuck on mangy planets like this one.”
Vi nodded; it was a start. “Money is tight, it’s true. But we have the beginnings of a refuge nearby, plus food, water, and camaraderie with like-minded people. If we’re successful here and you helped, General Organa would pay you. And since your job would mainly be to hang out in the cantina and win people over to our cause while drinking on our creds and living in our barracks, it’s not like you’d be going out of your way as long as your ship is still grounded.”
“And does the Resistance mind if its members gamble and smuggle to supplement their income until the princess ponies up? Because I’m not sure if you know this, but my ship—”
“Is impounded, and you owe Oga. You said so multiple times.”
“I owe Oga, big time.” He paused. “That’s fun to say. Owe Oga. Owe Oga. Oh no, oh my, I owe Oga outrageously.”
Vi burst out laughing. “Are you still drunk, or are you just this way?”
“Yes.”
They walked in silence for a moment, and Vi wondered how close it was to dawn. Her adrenaline was still up from shooting the troopers, and she wasn’t yet sure if she regretted that action. She could’ve tried to talk them out of killing Zade, or even pulled her tac baton and bonked them both hard enough to render them unconscious while she and Zade escaped. Killing them would only serve to make Kath angry. Angrier. And if anyone had seen it happen and could identify Vi as the killer…
Well, it was unlikely Kath could possibly want to capture her even more than he did now. It would be better if she stayed out of the outpost completely, or at least paid more attention to bringing her helmet along. It was fortunate that one angry lieutenant and whatever troops he’d brought could only search so many places on the planet at once.
As they approached the ruins, Zade tensed. That was good—he’d seemed a fool outside the cantina, but at least he was alert for danger.
“This is our camp,” Vi told him. “The beginnings of our command center. The locals are scared of the ancient ruins, so we’ve cleaned them out and taken over. Just don’t try to steal or drink from the cenote. It’s full of poisonous anemones.”
“That seems safe.”
“It’s safe for the people who know not to steal or drink from the cenote.”
He stopped, his voice oddly soft as he said, “I never asked, but why did you save the bucket? Wretched thing.”
Vi stopped, too, and held up the white helmet in both hands. “I’d like to say it’s a souvenir, but I just know this sort of thing can come in handy. It has a comlink built in, for one thing. We lost a lot of our cargo on the way in—to Oga, so we have a common antagonist there—and now we’re patching together what we have from what we can scavenge, win, or buy on the cheap. Now that I think about it, I wish I would’ve had you carry the other one.”
His lips wrinkled up in disgust. “Nah. Probably would’ve yarked in it.”
Which made Vi think about how Archex might react to it. “Yeah, you’re not the only one who feels that way.”
“What’s your name, by the way? I’m sure you already know mine. Saw you watching me in the bar, just mistook one kind of interest for another.”
It still felt strange to give her real name, but Vi felt it—Ylena was right about him.
“I’m Vi,” she said. “Now come on. The crew’ll be asleep, but we’ve got empty bunks.”
Zade regained his old swagger, expecting a crowd as he followed her in. “Excellent. That’s ever so much better than falling asleep under the table in the cantina and waking up with that Talpini fellow staring at me like a lurid gargoyle.”
“He’s creepy, isn’t he?”
“Beyond.”
They were under the lights now, which were dimmed for sleeping, and Vi held a finger to her lips. She wasn’t sure if Zade could actually be silenced, but for the moment, at least, it worked. She showed him to an unclaimed niche in the wall, and without asking for padding or a blanket, he flopped into it, saluted her, and instantly began snoring with one long leg dangling to the ground.
“Welcome to the Resistance,” she whispered.
She stashed the helmet among the cargo and fell into her own bunk, fully clothed, exhausted for the second night in a row and aching from skull to knees. What she needed was a day off, a medpac, and an audiodrama to listen to while she knitted. But what she was going to get, she knew, was another early morning and long day followed by a night of leadership.
“I don’t know how Leia does it,” she murmured to herself as she fell asleep.
* * *
—
That peace, of course, was not to last.
Vi startled upright when Archex barked, “Who are you?”
She was groggy and barely awake, and she had maybe thirty more minutes to sleep until Pook’s morning alarm, but she scrambled to her feet to find Archex looming over Zade. The newcomer simply sprawled out of his niche in the rock, elbows out and booted feet crossed. Even when deeply hung over, he definitely had no shortage of moxie.
Zade opened his mouth,
but Vi interrupted him before he said something regrettable. “This is Zade. He’s our new recruit.”
Archex looked Zade up and down, his arms crossed and his eyebrows drawn down. Dolin woke up and wandered over, too, his hair sticking up and his face creased from the pillow he’d brought from home.
“It’s that guy from the cantina,” Dolin said. “The loud one.”
“That’s me,” Zade agreed. “The loud one. And you’re the big one.”
“I mean, that’s fair. Welcome.” Dolin went back to his bed, rolled over, and pulled up his blankets. It was a relief, Vi thought, to have someone easygoing and open and reasonable like Dolin around. Archex, on the other hand, was like a live wire, always on the alert, always waiting for the other shoe to drop, seeing danger around every corner. And why wouldn’t he? He’d experienced enough trauma and betrayal in his life that it was a wonder he could function at all.
“Zade, this is Archex. I found Zade in the cantina last night, convincing pretty much everyone that the First Order is terrible. Archex is my second in command, and he’s in charge of training, weapons, security, and chow.”
Vi hadn’t spoken Archex’s jobs out loud before, and she hoped it would be the balm that helped him not immediately simmer with rage over Zade, who was almost exactly the opposite sort of person. Archex was moral, noble, hardworking, exacting, and hard on himself. Zade, on the other hand, appeared amoral, lackadaisical, disrespectful, and cocky—at least, that was what Vi had seen of him in just a few hours of his acquaintance. There was a chance the two men might get along, but…
Well, they were still in a staring contest, weren’t they? The more amused Zade looked, the more annoyed Archex looked.
“Somebody blink so we can have breakfast,” Vi said, rubbing her eyes. “I’ve got to get to work.”
“Ah, work,” Zade said, stretching luxuriously. “My least favorite word. I mean, it’s not so bad when I’m zooming about on autopilot with a hold full of bounty, but something tells me no one on this planet knows how to get hard-earned sweat out of shimmersilk, you know? I mean, who would I even ask?” He brushed at a spot on his sleeve that he definitely had not cared about last night.
“Hmph. Shimmersilk. Who would even wear it in the first place?” Archex shook his head in disgust and left.
Zade transferred his mischievous grin to Vi. “He’s a laugh riot, that one. I bet he really loves to let his hair down by brushing his teeth with his other hand and folding his socks a new way.”
Vi sighed. “We each bring our own unique gifts to the Resistance. You can’t do his job and he can’t do yours. Don’t get too far under his skin, though—he’s had a rough year.”
Zade sat up, his feet smacking on the floor. “I noticed the limp.”
“The damage goes deep. You’ll be here together for most of the day. Try not to antagonize him too much.”
Scratching the stubble that had appeared overnight, Zade said, “You’re asking for compassion at this hour? Woman, I can barely offer you sanity.” When she gave him a hard look, he sighed. “Yes, fine. I’ll try not to poke the gundark—but considering the hours of my work, I hope he understands that sleeping in until lunch isn’t indolence. It’s self-care.”
Vi gave him a nod and headed to the bathroom, hoping that Zade would just sleep through the afternoon and the problem would cancel itself out. Pook had finally uncovered the crate containing her clothes, and it was eye-rollingly wonderful, wearing a clean pair of pants. Once she was presentable, she found Archex at a makeshift table he’d instructed Pook to set up, one of their old transport’s doors balanced over some empty cargo crates.
“What are you doing?” she asked him, as he appeared to be doing nothing, which was his least favorite thing to do.
“Dreaming of caf and trying to stop myself from shaking some sense into that space hobo you brought home.”
Vi could sympathize with both desires but could only indulge one. “If you promise not to break him, I’ll send Kriki into town after work today for caf and some more meat. After all, a leader can’t lead without feed.”
Archex looked at her strangely. “Who told you that?”
“I did, after my team leader ran out of food after Crait. The Resistance has had some lean days. At least you guys always had nutrient paste and amphetamine-drugged water.”
He tipped his head in concession at that. “The officers’ mess did have good caf, though. Speaking of which…” Archex motioned her close, and Vi grabbed some fruit from a box on the table and sat on a crate beside him while she munched. “Do you know the name and rank of the officer that’s on Batuu? We haven’t had a chance to discuss it, with all the new kids around, but I can help with strategy if I know more.”
Vi leaned in, too. “Lieutenant Wulfgar Kath. Big guy. Biggest First Order guy I’ve seen, actually.”
Archex leaned back, and his microexpressions went from surprise, to rage, to craftiness. “Yeah, I know him. We came up together. We were friends for a while when we were young and new, but his ambitions got a bit out of hand there, at the end. He always had his sights set on rising up as an officer. Took down a fellow trooper in a particularly dirty way to gain our instructor’s approval once. One of the most precise and particular people I’ve ever met. Almost fussy.” He sighed. “This is not good. Kath is the worst sort of enemy. Unrelenting. He’s not in it for pride or altruism; he’s in it for Kath, for power, for control. Utterly obsessive.”
The meiloorun in Vi’s mouth went tasteless, and she swallowed the lump and threw the rest of the fruit in the compost bin. “That’s not what I wanted to hear. I was hoping for an idiot.”
“Kath is far from an idiot. No one who rises to lieutenant in the FO is.”
“Good morning!” Kriki sang, bustling into the room carrying a box that hid her face.
Vi and Archex gave each other a look that said This conversation isn’t over and schooled their expressions to avoid spreading their disquiet to the cheerful Chadra-Fan. Kriki set the box down on the table and beamed at them.
“I gathered up all the comlinks I could find and built a private channel for us. It’s totally shielded, untraceable, and only unlocks at the code phrase.” Her giggle was high-pitched—and diabolical. “Can you guess what it is? The code word?”
“Snoke’s butt?” Vi guessed. Archex rolled his eyes at her immaturity.
“Oh, now I kinda wish it was! But it’s actually—” Kriki made a high-pitched, sneezy sound that was a little like snee-klee-pfix, then laughed again. “It’s perfect, right?”
Vi tried to repeat the sound, and Kriki’s nostrils fluttered as she grimaced. “Oh, no, that’s nothing like it. You’ll never be able to access the channel.”
After Vi tried a few more times and Archex chimed in as well, both of them sounding like they were having allergy problems, Kriki finally shook her head, her ears drooping. “I didn’t know Chadra-Fan was so impossible for other species to speak. Should we just go with ‘Snoke’s butt,’ then?”
“Why not something easy, like hippoglace,” Vi suggested.
Kriki shrugged. “If that’s what you want, but I think it’s a real missed opportunity for group bonding.” She reached into the box and pulled out all the wrist comlinks Vi had taken off the corpses of Oga’s minions. “I can get them reprogrammed tonight after work, and then we should be able to communicate no matter where we are on Batuu.”
“Thanks, Kriki. I don’t know what we’d do without you,” Vi said.
The Chadra-Fan fluffed up her fur and purred. “Eee! I didn’t know how much I needed to hear that today.”
“You’re doing a good job, too, Archex,” Vi added, giving him an earnest look.
But he didn’t purr—or even smile. “It’ll mean more when it’s actually true. Don’t patronize me.” He stood with a groan and walked out of the kitchen.
“What�
��s his problem?” Kriki asked.
Vi shook her head and said, “Everything. And the lack of caf’s not helping.”
THAT EVENING, VI WAS ON HER way to Ronto Roasters in her Ubese mask to pick up dinner for the base. She knew it would be best for her to stay at home as long as Kath was looking for her, but she also knew that no one else in her crew had been trained on gathering intel, and she needed to see how the First Order was operating in the outpost. She was feeling refreshed, as it had rained hard that afternoon, causing the scrappers to take refuge in the hut during the downpour. She’d napped for two hours as the other women gossiped and spun with drop spindles and crocheted—and sipped from a flask old Dotti kept on her hip. Now everything sparkled with raindrops. She had a spring in her step and a sense of rightness in her gut.
Things were finally going well—or at least better. Thanks to Kriki’s short sleep cycle and genius way with tech, the caves were beginning to feel like an actual headquarters, and at this very moment the Chadra-Fan would be setting up their network of comms so they would finally be able to communicate from all over the outpost, a task far more valuable than fetching supper. Dolin had gone out to hunt truffles with Waba, which would bring in a little more cash and pacify the frachetty beast, who’d taken to wailing all day long while his master was gone, driving Archex to surliness and Pook to new depths of melancholy.
Vi was keeping to the shadows, enjoying one of Palob Godalhi’s news breaks playing from a nearby radio, when she heard raised voices.
It was stormtroopers, their blasters pointed at a couple of old women weaving baskets and selling fruit and vegetables from their cart, altogether too close to the cantina for Vi’s comfort. She quickly hid behind a column to watch. The Ubese mask amplified the sound of her own breathing and sweat dripped down the back of her neck. All around the market, vendors watched cautiously from their storefronts and shoppers hurried to safety.
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