Galaxy's Edge

by Delilah S. Dawson

  Vi found it gratifying, knowing that her work would go on without her. Even if she failed, she didn’t fail completely.

  She hadn’t told anyone else, but she had one more card up her sleeve: that same poison tooth that had been her comfort while Cardinal tortured her in the bilges of the Absolution. Just running her tongue over it was calming—the ultimate ejector seat. If Kath had pushed her just a little further with his instruments, she might’ve considered it—but she hadn’t reached that line. She’d decided that she would never give up Resistance intel to the First Order, no matter what. Even if Kath’s troopers managed to drag her back to Kylo Ren’s interrogation chair, she still had a way out.

  That little rebellion would always remain the ultimate Screw you to anyone who sought to control her.

  She stretched, cracking her back and feeling every bruise, every cut, every tender wound from her last visit to this transport. Pook could’ve continued to accelerate her healing in their makeshift medbay, but instead, she still wore the marks of Kath’s fists on her face. This was all part of the plan: These stormtroopers needed to see her as weak, damaged, foolish. Without resources. Without friends.

  “I’m in position, too,” Dolin whispered through the comlink. “Uh, Farm Boy, that is.”

  And that meant that it was finally, really, truly time to act.

  “Gah!” Vi shouted, tripping over a branch and letting her scanner crash on the ground.

  It wasn’t the greatest war cry ever heard, but as she slowly pulled herself to standing, groaning and clutching her bruised rib, she heard the exact sound she was hoping for yet dreaded: armor clacking as boots ran, right for her.

  “You there!” a woman’s clipped tones called with that familiar robotic flatness of a stormtrooper helmet’s speakers.

  Vi looked up and feigned panic, spinning as if to run.

  “Stop! Hands on your head!”

  She let her hands shake as they slowly rose in the air.

  “What’s wrong? What did I do?” she asked

  Gloved hands jerked her arms behind her back and slapped on binders.

  “Did I do something wrong? I’m just hunting for scrap—”

  “We know who you are, Resistance scum.” The woman’s tone dripped scorn.

  A second trooper moved in front of her, blaster at the ready.

  “Now turn around and march,” the woman said.

  Vi sighed heavily as she turned around.

  “Look, I’m not who you think I am—”

  Crack.

  The blaster split her lip open and might’ve knocked a tooth loose. Apparently her new gray wrap and natural hair were as clumsy a disguise as she’d hoped. They really weren’t playing around.

  “Don’t open your mouth. Don’t speak. Walk.”

  A blaster prodded her in the back, and she had a momentary flashback to Cardinal marching her through the corridors of the Absolution. She wandered if Archex ever thought about her time in his interrogation chair under the watchful eye of his floating droid Iris, if he felt guilty about it or considered himself a completely new person, someone free from the shackles of his past. Thanks to Kriki, he now knew that she still had nightmares about him, that she hadn’t gotten over it. Those moments were buried in her soul, probably permanently, and she never knew when they would rise, unbidden, from the dark.

  And now she was going back to that same place, again, putting herself willingly into the enemy’s hands.

  Because that was her job.

  The blaster prodded harder—that was going to leave a bruise.

  “Walk!” the male trooper barked as the woman led the way.

  “Lieutenant Kath will be most pleased to see you,” she said, smug.

  Vi’s blood ran cold.

  Kath isn’t dead?

  And it was too late to tell her people.

  All she could do was stay alive and hope.

  KRIKI HUNCHED UNDER HER TUNIC, THE datapad clutched tightly against her chest. She hated being near the First Order transport; the area around it just felt…wrong. Even the birds could sense it and had stopped singing. The scent of burnt metal hung in the air, and high overhead in the canopy, the branches and leaves were cruelly shorn, leaving an empty hole where life should’ve thrived.

  Zade stood beside her, his energy as tightly wound as a spring. He’d tried tapping his foot once, but she’d gently elbowed him—it would be the highest tragedy for the entire mission to go jogan-shaped because of one nervous human’s inability to control his extremities. She limited her own panic to blinking and fluttering all four of her nostrils. Both of her hearts were pounding, though, and the whole ordeal would probably take a year off her life, if she lived through it at all.

  Still, she told herself, it was worth the risk.

  She couldn’t let Batuu die, as Hosnian Prime had. This place was her chosen home, and these were her chosen friends, and the Resistance needed every snippet of hope it could get. She was glad to play her part. It was an honor, being able to contribute to something so important. For months now, Gol had told her she was useless, annoying, weak—and she had almost begun to believe it. But her time with Vi and the others had been like rain watering shriveled plants. She’d bloomed, her fur had fluffed up, she’d woken from every sleep cycle eager to return to her work. It was a blessing, to find what a body was good at and a way to use those skills to help the galaxy.

  All she had to do was reprogram a ship.

  No big deal.

  She had the skills, the knowledge, and the downloaded plans. It was harder to fix up a grumbling generator than it was to program a silly old ship. And a First Order ship, at that! One of the most up-to-date, technologically savvy machines in the galaxy! Why, it would practically program itself!

  “D’you need to pee?” Zade muttered. “I always feel like I need to pee when I’m nervous.”

  “You drink a lot more than I do,” Kriki whispered back. “Now hush.”

  “Yes, exactly. Hush. We need to wait for Mother Hen to get all the nasty soldiers out of their lovely ship.”

  When his boot started jiggling again, Kriki gently, politely, firmly stepped on it and held it down.

  Soon she heard Vi mumble something, out in the forest, and two troopers ran off in that direction. It was time! Time to do her job! Kriki swallowed hard, trying to slow her breathing so she wouldn’t get light-headed.

  It was easy. Just machines. She was good with machines.

  But she was very, very bad with…well, pressure. With fear. With dread.

  When Gol had hit her, she’d frozen, ducked and cowered, never fought back.

  She simply hadn’t known how to.

  And despite Archex’s patient teachings, she still didn’t.

  And that meant that the only thing standing between her and death was Zade, and Zade was…well, not the most dependable person she’d ever met. Sure, she liked him, and he seemed committed, but he didn’t seem as confident as usual, which only made her more nervous.

  “Sir, we found her,” said a woman’s clipped voice on the other side of the transport.

  “Excellent,” a man responded, his voice unmarred by a stormtrooper mask. “General Hux will be most pleased.”

  Beside her, Zade had gone completely still, and when she looked up at his face for reassurance, he’d also gone very pale. In Kriki’s estimation, that was probably a bad sign in a furless humanoid. They weren’t supposed to change color.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “It’s Kath,” he said, voice low. “The lieutenant Vi shot is still alive.”

  “So?”

  He exhaled shakily. “So this isn’t going to be as simple as we’d planned.”

  Kriki’s ears drooped. She was beginning to think that this time, they didn’t have the better hand.

  VI BLINKE
D ONCE AND LET REALITY wash over her like a wave.

  Because, as it turned out, reality had changed.

  She’d killed Lieutenant Wulfgar Kath. She was sure of it. She’d shot him in the chest at point-blank range. And yet here he was, very much alive, even if he was holding himself in a way that suggested nearly dying had hurt a bit.

  “Starling,” he said with pleased wonderment, like someone discovering a new species of bird for the first time. “Also known as Resistance spy Vi Moradi. Here we are again.”

  “Well, technically, you moved your mobile torture house, so we’re a few klicks to the west,” she said through mangled lips. “But otherwise, sure.”

  “I’m going to enjoy continuing our interrogation.” And then Vi saw Kath’s smile for the first time and realized he was probably a sociopath, which changed things. In addition to the two troopers who’d brought her in, four more troopers emerged from the transport, as well as her old friend Gol and two more unsavory sorts from the outpost, including, to her great surprise, Rusko.

  Fantastic. Now they had an audience of people who actually hated her.

  Which…was perhaps something she could use.

  “Sure, we could do that interrogation thing again.” She cleared her throat, feeling blood collecting on the back of her tongue. “Or you could prove to your buckethead buddies and local do-boys here that you can actually beat a woman who’s not tied up. What do you say, Wulfguts? A little one-on-one fistfight? Because I bet you lost face when I shot you and escaped. I bet your soldiers have questioned your leadership, or at least whispered about you while you were asleep.” She smiled sweetly. “Unless you’re scared to fight a little bitty busted-up thing like me.”

  Kath sneered and began to speak, and Vi spat a big wad of blood on his crisply creased uniform.

  In response, he punched her in the gut, making her double over. She barely stayed on her feet, the breath driven from her lungs. He was definitely strong, but she’d already known that. She just had to do the same thing she’d done with Cardinal, drawing out the torture for as long as possible. Somewhere in the forest beyond, Kriki would be waiting to sneak into the transport and do her magic. But first, Vi had to get every single trooper out here and focused on watching her die.

  “I don’t have to prove anything to you,” Kath said, nose in the air.

  “Me, no. But Gol and Rusko and their friends are going to go back to the outpost and tell people you were too scared to fight me one-on-one. That you had someone else put me in binders. Where’s the First Order’s might? Do they know you got sent down here as punishment, that all the good lieutenants get to stay in fancy digs on Star Destroyers and keep their hands clean? Want me to tell them what got you sent down here?”

  Slam.

  Another gut punch. At least he telegraphed, so Vi was able to tighten her core before his fist hit. And luckily, he wasn’t hitting her face this time. Concussions were bad, but two concussions in the same week were really, really bad. Or was it three? She couldn’t remember.

  “Wulfguts here saw me on a Star Destroyer and let me go,” she taunted. “You hear that, Rusko? I walked right past this bootlicking coward and kidnapped one of his men, and he didn’t even notice. He just let me continue on my merry way.”

  Whump.

  The punch thunked her in the chest, and Vi swore she felt her heart stutter as she stumbled back.

  That one was gonna bruise.

  “Oh, the scary girl! With her hands behind her back!” She grinned at Gol with bloody teeth. “This ‘officer’ can only hit me when I’m restrained. I bet you wouldn’t be too scared to unbind me and take me on in a fair fight, huh? Bet you’re still mad at me for stealing the underpaid servant who did all your work for you.”

  “I’m not scared of you,” Gol yelled, and Vi could hear in his voice that he was—but he was also furious.

  The others could sense it, too. The outpost regulars crossed their arms and looked from Gol to Kath. Rusko and the other guy were big, rough types, and they were adding up what they thought of the First Order and the Resistance in terms of attitude, right now. If stringy little Gol was willing to fight her but big, burly Kath wasn’t…well, that said something.

  “Fine,” Kath said coldly. “Troopers. Recruits. Make a circle. Blasters drawn. Unbind her. Might as well loosen her up for interrogation.” He then did something Vi would not have anticipated: He took off his First Order coat, revealing a white undershirt. Carefully folding his coat, he walked back to the transport and returned with empty arms and neither hat nor blaster. Another trooper trailed behind him, this one with his hand bandaged, and Vi almost smiled, hoping that this meant the transport was now empty.

  “This,” Kath said carefully, “is off the record.”

  A trooper stepped behind Vi and unbound her wrists. Her arms sprang apart and flopped forward, bloodless. It would be several minutes before she would be able to land even the most pathetic punch.

  “Off the record,” she echoed, hopping around, shaking her head and wiggling her arms. “Okay, fun. I like off the record.” She looked around at the buckets and everyday monsters moving in to form a predator’s circle around the two fighters. She did not look at the transport, hoping to see some sign that Zade and Kriki had found a way aboard. If there was a hatch on the other side, they might already be at work. If the open hatch was the only way in, though, they were doomed. Half of the circle would see anyone attempting to sneak in. There were eleven hostiles watching the fight, and within the circle Kath was shadowboxing, moving with a disturbing swiftness and lightness for a man of his size. Vi had hoped he would be slow and ponderous and careful, but it turned out that beneath the fastidious façade lurked a bare-knuckle brawler.

  Despite what Ylena had told her, the Force did not seem to be with her today.

  “You understand that I’m going to beat you to a pulp and then interrogate you anyway,” Kath said, advancing toward her, his hands held in boxing position.

  Vi considered her options and went with the Echani arts, which might give her some small advantage against a much larger opponent. Head shots would be smart, thanks to the beating Zade had given his skull. And of course she’d shot Kath in the chest recently, and even considering whatever hidden armor had saved his life, he would surely have bruising.

  They danced in a circle, and Vi wished they could circle forever, that there was some way to keep everyone’s attention occupied while she avoided getting pummeled. The crash, and her trip into the ruins, and then the last beating—well, she wasn’t getting any younger, and their medbay supplies were limited, even with what they’d regained from Oga and stolen from the First Order transport. No matter what happened, it was going to hurt.

  Kath barged forward with a wicked cross, and Vi dodged and followed it up with a kick, which he caught neatly on his shin. Vi felt the hit reverberate up her bones; he was built like a bantha! She would need to go for pressure points, then, and especially try to get inside his guard and hit his sternum or head. She went for a jab, but he batted her hand away and landed a powerful left hook, catching her in the ribs.

  It was like being electrocuted, being on the receiving end of his punches. Vi was usually fast, but she was not at her best. She staggered back to the tune of robotized laughter and Rusko’s foul, grating cackle. That rib was bruised, possibly broken again. She sucked in a breath and noted Kath’s pleased grin before surprising him with a running tackle. Darting under his ill-timed punch, she got right up against his chest and stabbed two fingers into the pressure point closest to where she’d shot him.

  And right into the armor that had prevented her bolt from killing him the first time around.

  Should’ve gone with a head shot.

  Kath shoved her away, hard, and she twisted and stumbled to the ground, catching herself on hands and knees. When his big boot came in for a kick, she rolled away, but w
hen she hit the edge of the circle, a stormtrooper kicked her back in, right in the gut. She staggered up, staying low.

  “This going the way you thought it would, Starling?” Kath taunted, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet and shaking his carefully gelled hair, making it flop out of place. “You think I don’t know Echani? You think I’d walk around an enemy planet without armor? You think I’m so foolish that I don’t know that this entire fight is a diversion?”

  Right on cue, a stormtrooper appeared in the transport hatch, nudging Zade out with a blaster.

  “Sorry, darling,” Zade called sadly. “They apparently frown on having their ships stolen. And here I thought it was a government that served the people.”

  Vi let the dismay show on her face—which wasn’t hard. With Zade caught, that meant that Kriki was on her own—but there was no way to know if she’d made it aboard the ship or if there were more soldiers waiting for her.

  “Do you want to keep fighting, or can we just skip straight to the torture?” Kath said. He’d stopped bouncing and now wiped his hands off on the white material over his belly, as if punching Vi might’ve given him a disease. “I’ll enjoy either option, but it is terribly fun, watching all your hopes fall away.”

  If she gave in now, that was less time for Kriki to somehow get on the ship and do her work. But if Vi kept fighting, Kath would rightly assume there was some further part of their ruse. Which left only one last card to play.

  “Was your mama a worrt?” she asked Kath, her voice pitched to carry. “Because I’m seeing a resemblance.”

  In the silence that followed, Vi should’ve heard Dolin’s arrow thwack into some soft part of the First Order officer, or at least into a tree or off the transport, if Dolin was nervous. That was their last gambit: Vi said the code phrase, and Dolin, who’d been waiting in the forest, would use his weapons to start a panic, take down anyone he could, and charge in.

  But nothing happened.

  So Vi danced forward, ignoring the pain in her ribs and belly, aiming for a tight combo of hits and punches. Unfortunately, she was hurt and therefore slow, and Kath knew the same forms she did, and he was twice her size, and he blocked every hit before backhanding her to the ground.