Empire's End: Aftermath (Star Wars)

by Chuck Wendig

“Usually not. This time, you are.” Conder clasps his hand. “Jas and Norra will be fine.”

  “I could go. I should go. Demand to be put in a ship. Like Jom. Like Temmin. I should be there.”

  “You’re not a soldier.”

  “I trained to be, once,” Sinjir says. “I know how to fight.”

  “If you want to go, I’ll go, too. Maybe they can use a slicer.”

  Sinjir nods. “I suppose it’s not impossible.” He hates that he wants to be there. He knows himself and he should be balking at this. Loyalty only goes so far, and despite once being the man who tested the loyalty of others, he himself is not particularly fond of the concept. And yet here he is. Wanting to rush into danger again for his friends. He supposes he should stop being surprised. I’ve become a different person than I expected. Or maybe he was a different person all along, led to a myth about himself created by himself. Is that how people are? Do they all have two sides? Who they really are, and who they believe themselves to be?

  “Who do we ask?”

  “Considering the size of the favor we just performed in service to the chancellor, I think we might ask her.”

  Conder draws a deep breath. “Are we going to Jakku? Are we really doing this?”

  “We might be, dearest Conder, we might be.”

  “I had hoped for a nicer vacation.”

  Sinjir hrms. “You and me both.”

  —

  War is coming.

  It’s what Jom Barell is built for. He never really felt like he trained for war but rather that he was just plain made that way. All his life it’s been about the fight. He fought against the Empire on Onderon. He fought against his own bloodline brothers there. He fought as a rebel. He fought as a commando for the New Republic. He fought with Norra and her crew.

  And now he wants to fight again.

  Sergeant Dellalo Dayson is, with her SpecForce team, loading munitions onto a low-atmo U-Wing. It’s a fat-bellied starfighter used as a troop transport, meant for fast, dangerous insertion into enemy territory. It’s an old class of fighter, but this is an old class of soldier. Jom feels that way, too.

  He whistles to Dayson as he skirts past one of the ship’s four engines. “Sergeant,” he calls.

  She turns and stares down her long nose at him. “You cleaned up,” she says. And he has. He shaved everything down—though he left the handlebar mustache and the meatchop sideburns. He combed his hair. Best he can do to look like a proper commando again. “Whaddya need, Barell?”

  “I need to go with you.”

  “No can do. Not my call. You want back in, there’s a whole chain of command you gotta climb.” She sees his face and offers both hands up in a peaceable gesture. “Don’t get mad at me, Jom. You broke ranks and did your own thing. You go and talk to General Tyben, maybe he gives you a stamp and gets you back on your way. But it won’t be with my crew.”

  “Damnit, Dayson—”

  “Sergeant Dayson, if you’ll recall.”

  His nostrils flare. “Sergeant. This fight? It matters. Maybe more than all the others.” She probably thinks he means it because this could be the Empire’s last hurrah. And that’s true. But for Jom, it’s personal. For Jom, it’s about Jas. He drops his bag. He cranes his neck so that the vertebrae pop. “I’ll fight you for it. I’ll fight the whole platoon for it. I take even one of you out, I want to take that commando’s place.”

  Dayson laughs. “We’d kill you.”

  “Maybe. But that’s better than having to go through the bureaucracy.”

  Coming off the ramp, pushing an empty grav-lifter, is another SpecForce commando: a goat-snouted, three-eyed Gran by the name of Margle. Jom knows him a little. He’s like Jom: good with heavy ordnance. “I hear something about a fight?” the Gran growls. “I’m in!”

  “Cool it,” Dayson says. “Nobody’s throwing fists today. And you’re right about the bureaucracy. You start making noise here I might have reports to do—and damn the stars, I hate filling out reports”

  “Dayson. Sergeant—”

  “Stow it, Jom. You want in on this mission? Fine. I got an extra jump seat. You want to do your part, I’ll say you came aboard and hid in the head until we were pushing hyperspace. But after that, I won’t stand for you. You come home, they might have a court-martial or a dishonor badge for you. That weight’s on your shoulders and I won’t carry it.”

  “Thanks, Sarge.”

  “We leave in five. Step to it, commando. The war won’t wait.”

  —

  War is coming.

  And Temmin wants to be there. He steps in front of Wedge and drops his hastily packed rucksack on the ground with a thud. Wedge looks at it and arches an eyebrow. “What’s this?” he asks the young man.

  “I’m enlisting.”

  “It doesn’t work like that, Tem.”

  “I don’t care. I want to go to Jakku.”

  “You’re a boy.”

  “Not anymore. You were training me to be with Phantom Squadron. I can fly an X-wing.”

  Wedge sets down his datapad. All around him, the hangar buzzes with activity—already, most of the starfighters and their pilots have gone on to join the fleet massing above Chandrila, soon to fly on to Jakku. But all the same, that’s just the first wave. They have to prep more fighters, more pilots. Prime torpedoes, test weapons systems, get the next set of pilots ready. There’s a lot to do and he tells Temmin as much:

  “You can fly a training simulator. Kid, I’ve got work to do—”

  “I’ve piloted the Halo. I’ve piloted the Falcon. You even let me do a few rounds in an X-wing. I can fight. And I will. I’ll steal a ship if I have to. I’ll steal a flying brick cargo loader and crash it into the front deck of a Star Destroyer. I’m going to Jakku. And I’d rather you be there with me.”

  “Phantom Squadron is shut down.”

  Temmin steps over his sack and looks up at Wedge. The young man’s eyes flare with eager fury. “Then bring it back from the dead! Nobody has to know we’re doing it. Nobody has to see us coming. We can be like real phantoms, Wedge. Not heroes in the books, but who cares about being in the books?” Now tears shine in Temmin’s eyes. “My mom is there. My droid, too. I want them back. You don’t want to help me get them? Fine. But then I’ll know who you really are, and it isn’t the guy who flew against two Death Stars and all the Empire. I’ll know you’re not a pilot anymore. You’re just some hangar-monkey, some tired old sir-yes-sir game-leg who cares more about docking ledgers than he does about actual people.”

  Now it’s Wedge’s turn: Anger and grief rise up inside him, the anger like fire, the grief like smoke. He wants to tell Temmin how wrong he is, but he can’t. Because the kid isn’t wrong, is he?

  Again Wedge is reminded of the Rebel Alliance. And Kashyyyk. And all the sacrifices made on behalf of the New Republic.

  Sometimes doing the right thing wasn’t the same as following orders.

  “Ah, forget it,” Temmin says, wiping his eyes with the back of his hands. His lip trembles. “I should’ve known you were out of the game.”

  “Wait.”

  Temmin pauses in picking up his bag. “Why should I?”

  “Meet me in Hangar Forty-Seven on the north side in two hours.”

  “What’s in Hangar Forty-Seven?”

  “Phantom Squadron.”

  —

  War is coming.

  It waits out there in the black. Commodore Kyrsta Agate stands on the bridge of the Concord, the first Nadiri Mark One Starhawk commissioned for the New Republic, and not the last—two more Starhawks hang out there in the space above Chandrila. They wait with dozens of other capital ships: the Alderaanian Sunspire; the Corellian Redeemer, an assault frigate; and of course, their flagship, the Mon Calamari’s Home One.

  Her hands are shaking. As they do.

  In the glass of the viewport, though, is a ghost hovering amid the fleet, a ghost with a ruined face. Half the face is smooth and plasticky, fitting poorly against the ot
her, more natural half. That plastic has none of the blemishes associated with flesh: no moles, no marks, no crow’s-feet by the eyes, no curving lines carved around the side of the mouth. It is an imperfect fit, as well—around the eye, the skin ends prematurely, yielding the dark, turning mechanics that support the mechanical eye.

  That eye glows red. It telescopes as the aperture opens and it focuses on its own reflection, for the face of the wraith is just Agate’s own mask.

  On Liberation Day, one of the Rodian ex-captives turned on her, driven to the act by a control chip in the meat of his brain. He fired, and she took the hit on the side of her face. They reconstructed the bone, but the flesh was gone. What’s there now is nu-skin, grown in a lab and applied with a brush. Over time, it is meant to look more natural, but it’ll never be her own. Agate will always know.

  The eye had to go. She asked for a mechanical replacement: The oculus-lens that they installed at least has function, if not form. It is ugly and protrusive and makes her feel less than human. But with it, she can see heat signatures and other data as long as she closes her other (human) eye.

  “Commodore.”

  Behind her, Admiral Ackbar steps out of the turbolift. It shushes closed behind him. Ackbar has been a friend through all of this—a comforting presence at her bedside and through all the surgeries.

  “I never thought I’d be back,” she says. Her voice is different since the attack. The blast took out some of her teeth. Messed up her jaw. It’s all been reconstructed, but now she sounds different. She hates it.

  “I’m glad you accepted the invitation.”

  She turns. The Mon Calamari approaches, his hands clasped behind his back. As he walks, she tells him, “It means a great deal to me, Admiral. But I still have reservations. I don’t know that I’m ready.”

  “You are. You must be. Commodore, you are among our best and our brightest—”

  “Some of the light has gone out of me, Admiral.”

  “And despite what happened, you remain one of our most vital commanders because you recognize the burden of war. You do not go to it lightly. You do not arrive with anger, not even after the Empire struck us at home and stole your eye from you.”

  “I gave up command of this ship.”

  “And I have returned it to you. Lieutenant Commander Spohn is glad to serve at your behest.”

  “I’m not ready.”

  Ackbar’s voice softens. He reaches out and places one of his webbed hands on her shoulder. “None of us are ready. No one can ever be truly ready for what war brings. The best we can do is meet it with our face forward and our hearts clear. You will do that. I know you will.”

  “They know we’re coming. They must. With an open government and a free media, that means the HoloNet will have reported on the vote. And surely the Empire knows about the Oculus spying on them from afar.”

  “Almost surely. Ensign Deltura reports that their fleet has grown and is consolidating in a defensive arrangement. This will not be a surprise for them or for us. It is the purest form of battle. Both sides, ready to fight.”

  “It may be a ruse. They may be luring us in—”

  “If they are, we will be ready.”

  She feels a single tear threaten to slip free of her one good eye and hastily blinks it away. “Tell me we’re going to win this. Tell me this will be the end of it. The end of the Empire and the start of a new galaxy.”

  “I’m no prophet, Kyrsta. I do not know who will win this day or who will even survive it to see the outcome. I only know it will be an honor to fight alongside you once again, whether this is our last battle or the first of many more to come.” His long fingers give her shoulder a squeeze.

  Agate struggles not to cry out. She wants to run off this bridge and go home. Get in her bed, hide under the covers, turn out the lights, and wait for HoloNet to tell her who won, who lost, who lived, who died. When did I become this coward? Why am I quaking like a gun-shy child?

  “May the Force be with you” is all she says.

  Ackbar nods. “And with you, Commodore. I must go. It is almost time.”

  War is coming. And soon, she prays, it is ending.

  The Imperial shuttle circles the base. From up here, Sloane can see everything: the command HQ, the landing platforms, the lines of walkers and starfighters. Everything looks prefab, as if it was hastily constructed.

  As if it’s all temporary, she thinks.

  The shuttle lands around the far side of the base, easing into a hangar bay whose mouth is eclipsed by the shadow of a tall ridge.

  Rax is not on this shuttle with her. Brentin is. He sits silently across from her. He’s frightened. She can see it in his eyes—the eyes of prey looking up into the jaws of a predator.

  Sloane will not be scared. She refuses. I am the predator, she thinks. I’m close, now. So close. Rax may have taken her captive. But that also puts her hands very close to his neck.

  The ramp opens. Sloane sees that the other two ships sit to their right. One of the troopers shoves her and Brentin down the ramp. Wexley loses his footing, falling hard without his balance, and the trooper ushering him forward stops to kick Brentin in the side, hard. The others laugh. This is not my Empire, she thinks. It is sloppy and cruel.

  They pick Brentin up and push him down next to her. Behind her back, the magnacuffs are uncomfortably tight.

  Rax awaits her, already off the shuttle. Troopers have lined up on either side of him. And Brendol Hux is here, too: the man behind Arkanis. Hux was helping to train the next generation of stormtroopers. She, with the aid of the bounty hunter Mercurial Swift, helped to extract Brendol and his son from Arkanis before it fell to the Republic. He’s now on Rax’s own Shadow Council. The man’s a blustering ass, and she sees that he’s let himself go: A gut strains at his belt. His hair is a mess. His eyes look tired.

  Those eyes look to the margins of the hangar, from left to right, and it’s then that Sloane sees that others have joined them, too—

  Along each wall of the hangar are children. Two dozen of them, roughly. They are young—some early in their teenage years, others not yet that age. They all wear plain white uniforms. Like nightclothes.

  Rax smiles. “Troopers, weapons down, please. We’re all friends.”

  The stormtroopers lower their blasters.

  But Rax says, “No, no, all the way down. To the floor.”

  The troopers give one another brief looks of confusion, but do as asked: They stoop, laying the weapons upon the ground.

  Rax walks up to her. Looking her over. “Do you see how the troopers have marked their armor? Painted it. Carved it up. Burned it with hot metal. They have transcended mere service. They are not just soldiers. They are something altogether more tribal, more ferocious, less human, all animal.” He sighs. “But I still don’t know that it’s enough.”

  “What have you done with my Empire?” she asks, desperate.

  He grins. “Ah. Let me show you.”

  Gallius Rax’s hand rises in the air, forming a fist. He snaps his fingers once—

  The lights in the hangar go out. Sloane’s heart jumps into her throat.

  Her eyes are slow to adjust, but her ears hear the sounds of the fracas. She thinks to run, to duck, to flinch, to flee, but she can’t imagine where she would even go or what she would do. All she does instead is tighten her body and lower herself to the smallest profile she can—hunkering down so that her chin is tucked between her knees.

  Blasterfire lances the dark, now. But that doesn’t last long. After which there are thumps, thuds, crunches—and grunts of pain.

  Silence, now, stretches out for one beat, two, three—

  Until it is ended by another snap of the fingers.

  The lights come on. Again her eyes have to adjust. Everything goes from bleeding black to overwhelming white, and as her vision reconstitutes she sees the floor is littered with bodies.

  The bodies belong to stormtroopers. All dead, by the look of it.

  Sta
nding over them are the children. Many hold sharp, crude knives with handles swaddled in dark tape, the blades made of black, dull steel. Some knives are buried in the backs of trooper necks—shoved elegantly, perfectly up under the helmet into the brain stem. Some are under the troopers’ arms, where another gap in armor waits and makes them vulnerable. A few of the children hold blasters, too. Rifles venting smoke.

  One of those children is a tall girl with her hair shorn to the scalp. Her face is a dead, emotionless mask. Brendol Hux, in contrast, is smiling. It is the smile of a child—giddy, broad, as if he’s just seeing outer space for the first time, or just had his first taste of sweet-taff. Has she ever seen him smile before? It is a terror to behold.

  What was it Rax said to her back on the Ravager? Back when he commanded her to rescue Brendol from Arkanis? The Empire must be fertile and young. Children are crucial to our success. Many of our officers are old. We need that kind of vitality. That brand of energy you get with the young. The Empire needs children.

  Sloane fails to repress a shudder. She dearly wants to vomit, but she dare not give Gallius Rax the satisfaction.

  The counselor, for his part, offers slow, measured applause. “Behold, Sloane,” he says. “The future of my Empire. I hope you enjoyed the show. You’ll soon see that this is only just the beginning.”

  She has no words. Brentin is speechless, as well, having fallen back on his tailbone, slumping against the still body of the trooper that was guarding him. His mouth is open and slack. His eyes are wrenched wide with horror. And that’s when Brendol, finally composing himself, steps forward and whispers something in Rax’s ear.

  Now it is the counselor’s turn to smirk.

  “The final battle is coming,” he says. “I’d like you to see it. The both of you. You are witnesses from both the old Empire and the conquering rebels. I have a seat for you reserved. Brendol, you and the children escort these two to their seats, will you? Seems I have a speech to give.”

  —

  Finally, it has come to pass.

  Finally, the New Republic has smelled the blood he’s been casting into the water and finally, they are arriving to take a bite.