Galaxy's Edge

by Delilah S. Dawson

  “Never had one of those before,” he murmured to himself. “At least, not a good one. Strange. Possibly a future weak spot—caring about people. Didn’t work out so well, last time I tried it. Best not to think about that right now. The bastard’s dead, at least. I hope.”

  Still, when he heard blasterfire in the transport, he took great glee in defying Archex’s order completely.

  He turned back around and ran to help.

  VI HAD BEEN TRAINED TO NEVER reveal any secrets to the enemy—not through words or actions. But she was weak and starved and dehydrated and possibly concussed and definitely not at her best. Whatever microexpression showed on her face, the stormtrooper guarding her detected the intruder entering the transport, whirled around, and shot.

  The blaster bolts zipped past Archex, singeing—was that Vi’s old orange wrap? Archex returned fire, but he kept hitting the white betaplast, leaving black burns that failed to stop the trooper. At least his strikes kept her from effectively returning fire. Archex ran down the center aisle between rows of seats, shooting all the while, and tackled the soldier, taking her down to the floor. Both of their blasters skittered away as they grappled, their skills equally matched.

  It was possible, Vi realized, that Archex had personally trained this woman in her youth, whoever she was.

  Watching the fight while helplessly trapped in binders and a harness was painful, physically and emotionally. There was nothing she could do to help except remain silent and avoid drawing Archex’s attention away from his foe. He would almost get the trooper into a lock, but then she’d wiggle out and try the same move on him.

  “You,” the trooper finally growled, having knocked off his goggles to reveal his face. “It’ll be a joy to kill you, Cardinal.”

  “My name is Archex,” he said, although it was clearly a struggle and his bad lung was making the fight twice as hard. “And I would expect no less from you, CF-9164. I trained you, so I know how you’re programmed.”

  “To think: I once looked up to you. We all did. And you betrayed us.”

  “Only from a certain point of view.”

  Just watching them wrestle was exhausting, and Vi quickly realized that there was no way Archex could win. The stormtrooper had full armor and a helmet, had more weight on her side, and probably didn’t have constant pain and chronic ailments. If only Vi had a little more room, she could get out of these binders, she could help, could grab a blaster and finish off the trooper, could—

  “Oh, my. What a tussle!”

  Much to her surprise, it was Zade, popping in the transport door and scurrying up the aisle, scarf fluttering behind him. He already had his blaster in hand, and as Archex strained against the trooper’s gloved hands, his face turning a disturbing shade of puce as she strangled him, Zade aimed for the spare few centimeters of black body glove exposed over her knee and shot her.

  She immediately let go of Archex as her body contorted in pain, and by the time she’d refocused, Archex had dragged himself out of range and Zade had the blaster aimed at her chest, not that a direct hit to her armor would do much damage. One of his fancy krayt-leather boots kicked a blaster over to Archex, who picked it up, still wheezing and panting as he leaned against the metal wall and aimed his weapon at a more useful patch of the trooper’s black body glove. He didn’t shoot her—yet—but the implication was there.

  “My heroes,” Vi said, the words low and dull, pulled rasping from her dry throat.

  After a nod from Archex, Zade reholstered his blaster and hurried over to unbuckle the harness pinning Vi to her seat.

  “Stop! My hands! You need to—”

  She didn’t get to finish. The moment the harness wasn’t holding her up anymore, she fell helplessly forward, nose-diving toward the floor with her hands still bound behind her back. Zade barely caught her in time, and she spent a strange moment with her face buried in his neck, smelling sweat, alcohol, and plom bloom cologne before he managed to shift her to the floor on her side. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was the only way to attack her binders. If she tried to stand up now, she’d fall over on bloodless legs. The businesslike way he handled her and released her binders suggested he’d had experience with being in this position, which piqued her curiosity. Thus far, no matter how drunk, Zade had never talked of his past. Soon she was sitting up against the wall, rubbing feeling into her hands. Her shoulders burned like a thousand fires, and her legs couldn’t really straighten.

  “Wait,” Zade said as he stood up. Everyone else was on the floor, and he swayed a little, the brightest thing in the uniformly gray space.

  “Wait for what?” Archex asked, annoyed.

  In response, Zaid aimed his blaster at the trooper again and murmured, “Take off your helmet, love.”

  She did so, revealing a scowling golden-brown face with dark, upturned eyes and ink-black hair shaved on the sides.

  It only took one shot, and she slumped against the wall, the light gone from her eyes.

  Archex surged up angrily, or tried to. He winced and lowered himself back down, massaging his thigh.

  “Why did you do that?” he barked.

  Zade shrugged. “She was the enemy? She was just waiting for a chance to steal your blaster and do that to you? We didn’t need her? I don’t like witnesses? You wouldn’t let me kill the officer? Take your pick. Or, better yet, get up and find our Mother Hen something to drink and possibly one of those magical stim-shots the bucketheads use to keep going even when a normal person would be sacked out. We need to get out of here.”

  Archex shook his head. “Can’t stand yet. I could use a stim, too. Up the lift and in the back right corner, you should find a kitchen with water and a refrigeration unit. The stims will be in there in a red box.”

  Zade nodded and hurried to follow his directions.

  Vi chucked her chin at Archex. “That was some real heroic stuff back there, Emergency Brake. You saved my carcass.”

  Archex gave her a wry grin, his forehead creased with pain. “Yeah, well, you’re our Mother Hen. I hate pretty much everything that comes out of Zade’s mouth, but that one was spot-on. I’m glad you finally have a nickname as bad as the ones you gave me.”

  Now it was Vi’s turn to scowl. “Mother Hen? Don’t you dare. I’m not some busy matron guarding chicks and building nests—” She burst out laughing, feeling every bruised rib. “Oh, no. I totally am. I’m a mother hen. I started out a sharp, deadly spy, and now I might as well be clucking around on Endor, waiting to become fried tip-yip.”

  They were both laughing like Kowakian monkey-lizards when Zade returned, holding two syringes and a canteen and scowling.

  “What’s so funny that it could make Mister Stifflip laugh?” he asked, annoyed. “I swear, the moment I do something responsible, he finally breaks character. Was it a binary joke? Did someone wear unmatched socks or part their hair in a ridiculous place?”

  “Calm down. He was just making fun of me,” Vi said. “Now hand over the goods. Mother Hen wants to feel like a person again instead of a human punching bag.”

  The water was heavenly if a bit metallic, and as always, she wondered what First Order cocktails she was ingesting with it. She didn’t have to say anything, though—Archex also knew that the water was probably spiked, and he was always watching, always waiting for something to go wrong. She jabbed the stim in her thigh and pressed the plunger, and immediately her blood warmed and her pain ebbed as the stimulants flowed through her. Within moments, she was standing and bouncing on the balls of her feet.

  “I could fight an acklay,” she enthused. “This stuff is great!”

  Archex dragged himself to standing and threw his own empty syringe on the floor. “First Order magic,” he said, not wheezing for once. “We’ve got about an hour to get out of here before we return to normal, which for me means I’m done.”

  Vi picked up the
trooper’s fallen blaster—and her helmet. She glanced around the transport, her mind coming back into delicious focus. “Zade, go grab all the stims. If you see any dense foodstuffs or quality medpacs, grab them, too.” He saluted and jogged off, and she continued taking inventory of the available resources. “I’m taking the helmet. Hell, I’m taking the armor. Wait. Where’s Kath? He’s got that long-range comlink I’ve been looking for.”

  Archex nodded. “Every officer has a personal holocomm. It will only work locally unless relayed off a nearby satellite or dish, so they must have a ship in orbit. If we’re going to use Kath’s comlink to contact the Resistance, we’re going to need Kriki to scramble the code and make sure they can’t trace it back to us—or out to the general.”

  “Got it. Can you get all their codes, whatever Kriki needs to make that happen? And, hey, if you can wipe out all their tech so they can’t communicate locally, that would be great, too. I don’t want any remaining troopers to be able to contact their superiors in the fleet and bring in reinforcements. I wish we had time to disconnect their entire comm system and take it back home, but we’ve got to get out of here before the scouts return. I’ll put on my trooper costume and grab Kath’s comlink. Let’s hurry.” Then she looked around at the glorious resources the transport contained and grinned. “Or we could steal it. It has everything we need.”

  Archex shook his head. “Kath’s ship is different. It’s voice-locked to Kath and perhaps two of his top soldiers. Maybe Kriki could get around that kind of lock, but they went to great trouble to ensure a grunt like me can’t do it.”

  Vi sighed. Of course.

  “Then back to the original plan.”

  Archex nodded and headed for the cockpit.

  Vi’s steps were light, her head clear as she disabled the helmet’s tracker, stripped the dead trooper, and put on the armor. It wasn’t impossible to accomplish, but it wasn’t easy, either, and she wondered how fast Archex could do it. The fit wasn’t ideal—the trooper was bigger than her in every direction—but it would work. Finished with his tasks in the cockpit, Archex passed by her on his way to grab supplies. His brow drew down as if he longed to help her arrange the armor like he’d once done for his juvenile pupils, but he gave her a reluctant nod of approval.

  Vi bounded out of the transport and into the soft stillness of the Batuu forest. Night had fallen, but the transport’s perimeter was flooded with artificial light. Lieutenant Wulfgar Kath lay on the ground beside a trooper helmet, unconscious, his breathing slow and shallow, a huge bruise blooming on his forehead. Vi’s mouth twitched. Kath wasn’t dead, and she could change that with a single shot. But interrogation worked both ways, and this burly brute would have tons of information the Resistance could use. She found the comlink in his jacket pocket and jogged back over to the transport.

  “Is there a hovergurney in there? Or a speeder? I want to take Kath hostage.”

  Zade appeared, his arms loaded with boxes. “He’s not dead?” he asked, sounding disappointed.

  “No. Which is good. We can use him. About that speeder?”

  Zade’s face fell, and Vi could tell that it was more than simple sadness at the enemy’s ongoing existence, but there was no time to probe more deeply.

  He ran a hand through his hair and said, “We came over in a landspeeder. Borrowed it from Ylena and Savi, so it needs to be returned in good shape. I was informed quite firmly that I was not allowed to drive. Let me jog this over and zip right back, and we can carry the bastard to it in a jiff.” Vi opened her mouth to remind him that he would not be driving when she heard someone outside shout, “Sir!”

  “Guys, we’ve got company. We’ve got to go!” she said, her voice low.

  Zade’s eyebrows went up and he hurried to her, holding the boxes close. Archex emerged from the back of the transport wearing an armored breastplate and carrying a blaster and a med case.

  “I’m going to go out there and stall them,” Vi said. “I’ll cover you guys. Wait until I shoot.”

  Vi yanked the helmet over her head and hurried to the transport hatch. The entire world looked different through the helmet, but there was no time to ponder all the readouts.

  Seeing the two troopers squatting around Kath, she pointed away from the transport and pitched her voice to sound like the trooper whose armor she wore. “He was attacked. They went that way. Hurry!”

  The troopers stood and pulled their blasters. It didn’t matter what had tipped them off to her disguise—the jig was up. Without another word, Vi started shooting. She took down one trooper, but the other one shot back, and she felt the impact of a bolt on the armor over her shoulder, another against her belly. Archex and Zade exploded from the transport behind her, running in different directions, zigging and zagging, their arms full of stolen goods. When the remaining trooper’s helmet and blaster pivoted in their direction, Vi landed a lucky shot, forcing him to drop his blaster and clutch his hand, blood dripping from his glove.

  She gave one last, longing look at Lieutenant Wulfgar Kath and shot him in the chest before following Zade into the forest at a full run.

  THE STIMS, OF COURSE, WORE OFF before they returned to the ruins. It happened suddenly, like liquid draining from a hole drilled in a bucket. Vi was sitting in the back of Savi’s speeder, taking inventory on their loot, bursting with energy and hope, her mind moving a kilometer a minute. And then all of a sudden, she deflated and felt every bruise, every abrasion, every place where the armor dug in, every slender cut where Kath had held a scalpel to thin and tender skin. She’d had him, finally had an advantage, and then she’d lost him. She’d have to settle for seeing him dead. It didn’t make her feel any better, just now.

  Nothing did. Nothing could. She felt empty and drained and broken.

  Vi always had to remind herself: Trauma is traumatic. For all that she’d survived the ordeal and they’d accomplished much in the rescue mission, the truth was that she’d been tortured and was a complete wreck, physically and psychologically.

  “Oh,” Archex said, sad and surprised, and the speeder slowed down and jigged a little.

  So his stims had likewise given out. Vi didn’t envy him the return of his own pain, of the constant burn in his leg and the way his lung would never again draw a full breath. She would have to watch him around their box of stolen stims—for warriors left with decimated bodies, addiction was always waiting around the corner, any kind of numbness offering a welcome balm. She couldn’t imagine Archex bellied up to Oga’s bar like Zade, slurping down a dozen Fuzzy Tauntauns to lose himself in a drunken haze, but she could all too easily picture him alone in the recruitment post on a bad day, when the rain made his bones ache, standing over the stim stash and promising himself just one hour of blessed relief, just one quick nap without nightmares.

  The spires knew she would’ve done it herself, just then.

  They made it back to the ruins and found Kriki, Ylena, and Dolin anxiously waiting in a puddle of artificial light by the cenote.

  “It worked?” Dolin asked, his features lifting. By his side, Waba snortled enthusiastically.

  “It worked,” Zade confirmed. “And we have bounty! And we killed people! Who very much deserved it!”

  The speeder stopped, and Archex struggled to get out, nearly falling when his boots hit the ground. Vi would’ve helped him—but her condition was no better, and he would’ve just slapped her hands away. Dolin hurried forward and offered an arm, and Archex was so beat up that he actually took it.

  Archex held out a datapad that Vi hadn’t seen him steal. “Kriki, this should have all their codes, everything they have onplanet. It can also scan crates, hack droids and doors, and translate unknown languages. And I bugged the ship, so if it moves, we’ll be able to find it. If it hits atmo, we’ll know.”

  “Okay?” The Chadra-Fan looked a little uncertain as she stepped forward to take the tablet. “I mean, I
don’t have any experience with First Order tech, but…”

  “You can do it. We believe in you. Just…use it to really mess ’em up, okay?” Vi said from the speeder; she was still working herself up to standing again. “The goal is to keep them from getting a message offplanet and letting their superiors know we killed their officer. And if you can make sure all their personal comms die, too, so they can’t talk to each other using their helmets ever again, that would be great. I know Archex did some work on their transport, but we need there to be no way to fix it. I’ve got a helmet, if you need to know the parameters.”

  Vi held out the helmet, and Kriki took it, taking pains not to show how the heavy weight challenged her. On second thought, Vi held out the comlink she’d lifted off Kath.

  “And this holocomm is our golden convor egg. I need it set up so I can call General Organa but not have the codes recorded or intercepted by anyone, especially when it pings off the First Order ship in orbit.”

  “I can do that,” Kriki said. She took the comlink, too, and looked down. “I’m sorry I couldn’t participate in the rescue. I…that is…after losing my sister on Hosnian Prime, I just can’t…the thought of…I’m just so…”

  “Scared,” Ylena said softly, a hand on Kriki’s shoulder. “It’s okay. Everyone has a role to play. We are not all fighters.” She gave Vi a quiet, secretive smile. “And some of us wage our war elsewhere, with our heads and hearts instead of our hands. Your knowledge is a weapon, Kriki. No one could ask any more from you.”

  Vi returned Ylena’s smile. “That’s true, Kriki. None of us can do what you can. And Ylena, we owe you thanks for the speeder. And to Savi as well. Without it, I’m pretty sure Archex and I would be flat on our backs in the forest, crying. Or dead.”

  “Oh, I would’ve joined you,” Zade said. “In the flat-on-your-back part, not the dead part.”