by Paul S. Kemp
He tried to contain a giggle, but it burst out. The scene struck him as ridiculous. The day struck him as ridiculous.
Another group of Twi’leks crept down the side of the quarry, while a handful more remained at the lip, overlooking the village.
“Hello, Syndulla,” Belkor said.
He had them now, all of them in one place, and he was going to kill them.
“They deserve it,” he said—to Ophim, or perhaps to himself, he wasn’t sure anymore and didn’t think it mattered.
He started to reach for the comm—it would be enjoyable to taunt Syndulla—but it exploded with a burst of static that elicited a little yelp from him. At first he wondered if he was imagining it. The communications hub couldn’t have repaired the third dish that quickly, could they?
He stared at the squelching comm set for a few breaths, his chest rising and falling, sweat beading his forehead. If the comm was back up, then what?
“What does it mean, Ophim?” he asked.
He reached slowly for the communicator, stared at it a moment, activated it, and then hailed the hub. “Do you…copy?”
Static, then, “This is the Equatorial Communications Hub. We copy. Identify—”
Belkor dropped the communicator as if it were on fire, then hurriedly grabbed it again. He transmitted the coordinates of the Twi’lek village to the V-wing leader. “The traitors are on the ground there. There’s a Twi’lek village at the bottom of an old quarry, and many Twi’leks along the side and lip of the quarry. Kill everything. No one is to escape. Acknowledge.”
A long moment passed before the wing commander said, “Acknowledged…sir.”
Belkor wanted to see it all for himself, so he decreased his altitude and waited for the V-wings to start the slaughter. He would’ve joined them if the recon ship had any weapons. Unarmed as it was, all he could do was enjoy the show. And he could still taunt Syndulla.
—
Cham’s encrypted comm buzzed. He activated it. “Go,” he said to Belkor.
“Guess what, Syndulla?” Belkor said, his tone vaguely frantic. “Comm is back up!”
Cham felt his skin flush. “What? How do you know that?”
“Try it!” Belkor said. “Go ahead. It’s all crashing down, now, Syndulla. Not just for me, though. Get ready.”
Cham activated his comm and hailed Kallon, who by then would be far too distant to hail if the jamming signal was still working. “Kallon, do you copy? Kallon?”
“I copy,” came Kallon’s startled reply. “Cham—”
Cham cursed, cut the connection, and looked to Isval, beside him. She looked stricken. Goll stood next to her, his thick arms crossed over his chest.
“Comm is back up,” Cham told them.
“We have to go, then,” she said, and nodded at the village.
“My people are in position,” Goll said.
Cham nodded. Goll’s fighters lined the path leading down to the quarry’s bottom, ready to move in on the village. Goll remained with Cham and Isval to provide fire support and coordination from up top.
“He has a comm, Cham,” Isval said. “Vader does. We saw it. They’ll send for rescue. We’re out of time.”
Cham shook his head, trying to assess things clearly, though his thoughts were jumbled. “No, we have a little time. No one is close.”
“We don’t know that,” Isval said. “What if someone is? This is our one chance. This is the whole point of everything.”
Cham looked down on the village, the Twi’leks, the women and children. He shook his head.
“Not yet,” he said.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“You have to do it,” Isval said, but she could hear the lack of conviction in her voice. “It’s now or not.”
Cham looked down on the village for several beats, his eyes pained.
“Cham?” Goll asked gently. “Go or no go?”
Cham didn’t turn his gaze from the villagers. “We go. But we fire warning shots.”
“What?” Goll asked.
“Cham…” Isval said.
“I’m not firing on Twi’leks,” Cham said. “They’ll flee into that mine shaft when the warning shots come. That’s why it’s there. It’s a safe-hole. Probably lets out somewhere in the forest.”
“We won’t have surprise,” Goll said, leaving the implication unspoken.
Isval spoke it, though: “You’ll get some of our people killed. You’ve seen what Vader can do.”
She hated herself for saying it but knew it needed to be said.
Cham’s face twisted in an expression she’d never seen him show before: pain, rage, despair, all of them lived in his eyes. He was weary, she saw. “Don’t you think I know that, Isval? But our people signed up to fight and maybe die. Those villagers didn’t. We’re freedom fighters, not…” He trailed off, shaking his head.
“Not what?” Isval asked.
“Think about what we’re considering here,” Cham said. “Having V-wings strafe a village of Twi’leks. Imperial pilots killing Twi’leks on our orders. That’s what we’re talking about. Think about that.”
Isval didn’t have to think about it. Cham’s words hit her like a punch. She thought of Ryiin, the other girls she’d saved over the years. She imagined girls like them in the village, just stuck in a bad situation, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She’d been convinced that strafing the village was the right thing to do. That killing Twi’leks was worth it to get at Vader.
Her skin warmed with shame and she bowed her head.
“It’s all right,” Cham said to her.
She looked up at him. “No it’s not.”
“We all lose ourselves sometimes, Isval,” he said. “We just have to find our way back.”
And all at once she was reminded why Cham was so important to the movement and to whatever came after. He’d fought the Empire for years, hated what the Empire stood for no less than she did, but always his hate and his methods were informed by his principles.
She loved him. She admitted it to herself. He was a freedom fighter. Nothing more, perhaps, but assuredly nothing less.
“We could still walk away,” she said, though the words came hard.
He shook his head immediately. “Pok,” he said. “Crost, Drim, Veraul, Eshgo, Div, Mirsil, Nordon, Krev…”
He went on for a time, naming every member of the movement who’d died that day, and once more Isval understood the weight he carried and labored under.
“For them we can’t walk away,” he said. “This can’t just be worthwhile. A Star Destroyer is worthwhile. This has to be worth them. And that means Darth Vader and the Emperor. You were right about that all along, Isval.”
She searched for words, found none, and instead put her hand on his.
Goll cleared his throat. “We can put some fire behind the villagers, give them time to get into the tunnel. But what if Vader and the Emperor run, too? Then where are we? They could take the whole village hostage, or just flee through that tunnel. What if they run, Cham? Do we let them go, or do we take the chance we hit some villagers?”
“We won’t have to take a chance,” Cham said, then he and Isval spoke as one. “Vader won’t run.”
Goll looked them in the face, nodded, and raised his wrist comlink to his mouth to issue orders to his men.
“Sometimes it’s possible for a decision to be right and wrong at the same time,” Cham said.
“Yeah” was all Isval said, all she could say.
When Goll gave Cham the nod that his men were ready, Cham pulled out the encrypted comlink and raised Belkor. “Belkor, have your V-wings hit these coordinates on my mark.”
“I think I will,” Belkor answered, sounding almost giddy. “But I think I’ll do it now.”
“No. On my mark, Belkor. Not before.”
“I can see you, Syndulla!” Belkor said. Now he was giggling. “I can see you, and you’re going to burn with the rest of them! I don’t answer to you anymore!”
<
br /> Cham heard the telltale sound of V-wings knifing through the atmosphere. They were already close, and closing. Cham cursed.
“Warning shots!” he shouted to Goll. “Now! Right now!”
—
Belkor watched his scan as his ships flew in toward the village. He saw them come into scanner range, flying low and fast over the trees. In a few seconds they’d scorch the earth. He couldn’t stop grinning. He felt like he should caper, but the cockpit had no room for it. Instead he danced a little in his seat.
And then he noticed something odd on the scan: two additional ships, a transport and a shuttle.
“What are those?” he asked. “Those shouldn’t be there, Ophim.”
He hailed the wing leader. “Meensa, I’m seeing two ships accompanying your wing. Identify them.”
No response.
“Meensa, identify those ships.”
A hole opened in Belkor’s stomach, a hollow space that started to expand and fill with doubt. “What’s going on here?”
He hailed the transport and received no response, so he tried the shuttle. That vessel responded, and when he heard the voice on the other end he had trouble breathing for a moment.
“Hello, Belkor,” said Mors.
—
Cham stared down at the quarry, hoping he was doing the right thing, as Goll raised his wrist comlink to his mouth and called down to his crew.
“Warning shots to scatter the villagers west. Then move in on Vader and the Emperor. Not too close. Air support is incoming.”
Goll’s team filed down the path in a crouch and darted along the quarry’s floor, using old rockpiles as cover, shooting as they went. They fired at buildings or aimed high, the red lines of their blasters writing lines in the mist.
Cham heard the surprised shouts of the villagers carrying up from the floor of the quarry. Several of the rough-hewn structures caught fire from the blaster shots, the flames spreading quickly. One of Goll’s fighters must have flung a grenade toward the village—not close enough to harm anyone, Cham presumed, but close enough to rattle the walls of the quarry and panic the villagers.
At first the Twi’leks milled around in the village center. There was shouting, there were some screams, and a few braver villagers climbed to the roofs of nearby buildings to get a look out into the quarry. Some of those fired wildly at the oncoming soldiers, but none came close to hitting anyone.
Cham watched it all unfold through the macrobinoculars, hoping that the villagers wouldn’t stand and fight, hoping that he wouldn’t have to call off the V-wing’s strafing run. He watched, encouraged, as several of the Twi’leks started to sprint toward the mine tunnel. The adults herded children and assisted a few elderly.
“Keep going,” he whispered.
Soon the other villagers started urging their friends and families to flee. Cham could see them gesturing at the tunnel. A few pulled at Vader and the Emperor, and Cham froze, fearing they might run into the tunnel, too.
He held his breath.
—
Drua tugged at Vader’s cape. All around them, the Twi’lek villagers were shouting, screaming, fleeing. A few fired off into the darkness at the unseen attackers. Flames rose into the sky from two burning homes.
“Our hunters have finally caught up with us,” the Emperor said, standing and straightening his clothing. Deez stood before him, shielding him, rifle readied.
“Come on!” Drua said. “Both of you. There’s a safe place.”
“We should retreat to the tunnel, my lords,” Deez said. “Reinforcements are en route.”
“Oh, I think not,” the Emperor said.
Vader pushed Drua away.
“Go,” the Emperor commanded her.
Drua looked surprised, then angry.
“Go, girl,” the Emperor said again, and she ran away along with the rest of the remaining villagers.
“You’ll have to do this yourself, my friend,” the Emperor said to Vader. “I can’t be seen using the Force before so many witnesses.”
“I will stay at your side, my Emperor,” Deez said.
Vader ignited his lightsaber.
—
“That’s it!” Isval said, looking through the macrobinoculars.
Darth Vader and the Emperor and the lone Royal Guard stood alone in the village center, the firelight turning their shadowed forms into dark ghosts. A thin red beam extended from Vader’s fist: his lightsaber.
Isval could hear the V-wings streaking in.
“Cham, the villagers are clear. Tell Belkor to have the V-wings level the place! It’s just Vader and the Emperor. We have them.”
—
Belkor opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, but words seemed unwilling to abandon his teeth. He was flushed, sweating. Finally he stammered, “Moff?”
“You tried to kill me, Belkor. And you killed hundreds of your fellows.”
“No, no,” Belkor said. “This is all a misunderstanding. I was—”
“Do not insult me further, Colonel,” Mors snapped. “And don’t do yourself any more dishonor by pleading your innocence. I know everything that you did. You have to pay.”
Emotions boiled over in Belkor, anger, despair, hatred—he wasn’t even sure he had a name for the rush of feeling. Instead he screamed into the comm, spraying it with spittle. “Pay? What about you? You should pay, too, you fraud! You should pay for your negligence, your laziness, for your drug use, for your slaves, for your own treachery against the Empire! I was a traitor today! You have been a traitor your entire career! You should pay, too, Mors!”
“I will pay,” Mors said. “I am paying. But I’m not covered in blood, Belkor. You are.”
Belkor looked over at Ophim’s bruise-colored corpse, the gaping head wound he’d put there. He nodded in resignation. He was covered in blood. Realizing it, acknowledging it, he suddenly felt boneless, like he was made only of liquid. He sagged in his seat, the weight of the day too much.
“Because of that,” Mors said. “You have to pay more than me.”
To his enormous surprise, Belkor felt more relieved than anything. He did need to pay. He did.
“What are you going to do, then, Moff?” he asked, his voice little more than a whisper. “Turn me over to the ISB? To Vader?”
“No, Belkor. I’m not going to turn you over to the Security Bureau or Vader.”
One of the V-wings diverted slightly from the rest of the group and blazed toward the recon ship on an attack vector.
Belkor nodded and sighed. He didn’t even think of running. It would have been pointless anyway. A recon ship had no chance of evading a V-wing.
“No, you couldn’t turn me over to them, could you?” he said. “I might tell them things you don’t want them to know.”
“It’s all over, Colonel,” Mors said.
Thank goodness, Belkor thought.
“Good-bye,” Mors said.
The V-wing closed. Belkor’s comp blared an alarm when the V-wing gained a weapons lock.
He took his hands off the stick and sat back in his seat. He looked over at Ophim’s corpse. “I’m sorry, Ophim.”
His computer screeched a warning that the V-wing’s weapons were active. Belkor closed his eyes. His world exploded in fire.
—
Isval, Cham, and Goll ducked instinctively as a ship exploded overhead into an orange fireball. Cham already had the encrypted comm to Belkor in his fist. He activated it.
“What was that, Belkor? Belkor?”
No response.
A V-wing knifed through the sky overhead, cutting through the cloud left in the sky by the explosion. Several more were swooping in behind it.
“Have them strafe the village, Belkor. Just tell them…”
“That was a recon bubble,” Goll said, causing Cham to trail off.
“What?” Cham asked him.
“The ship that exploded was a recon bubble.”
“No,” Isval said, despair creeping into her voice. “It
wasn’t. Was it?”
Cham squeezed the communicator so tightly his knuckles hurt. “Belkor, do you read? Belkor?”
Nothing.
And Cham knew that it was all coming undone.
—
Mors was well within visual range when Belkor’s ship exploded above the quarry, shooting orange and red streamers across the sky. Mors felt ambivalent as she watched the V-wing knife through the fire and smoke. In some ways, Mors had made Belkor. She supposed it was right that she was also the one to unmake him. She sighed and turned her mind from the colonel and his treachery back to events at hand.
“We land to either side of the Twi’lek forces in the quarry,” she said to Steen. “None escape. Send a contingent of stormtroopers to secure the Emperor.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
“Attack wing,” Mors said to the V-wings. “Take a visual pass of the quarry rim and surrounding forest. Weapons are loose for anything you see there. Do not fire into the quarry, however.”
She figured anything outside the quarry was either Imperial traitors, Twi’lek forces of the Free Ryloth movement, or Twi’lek natives. She didn’t distinguish among those groups for purposes of targeting.
“Setting down,” said the pilot, wheeling the shuttle down in front of the Twi’leks who’d descended the side of the quarry and were advancing toward the native village.
Behind them, cutting off their retreat, Steen’s transport landed. Before the transport even hit the ground, the passenger doors were thrown open and the stormtroopers started leaping out, blaster rifles spitting plasma. Half of them sprinted back toward the village to find the Emperor.
The Twi’leks turned to face them as the doors to the shuttle opened and the stormtroopers on Mors’s ship rushed out, rifles hot. The Twi’leks were caught in a crossfire. Lines of energy lit up the bottom of the quarry. A handful of shots came from somewhere above and to Mors’s right, presumably from along the lip of the quarry.
—
The V-wings screamed through the sky overhead without firing a shot at the village.
“Where did those other ships come from?” Isval asked, firing down at the transport and shuttle that had landed to either side of Goll’s team and puked stormtroopers.
The quarry’s floor was alight with blasterfire. Shouts carried up through the night air. Goll’s people were trapped, pinned down.
