by Claudia Gray
When they returned to the Devastator, Ciena was grateful to finally be off duty. She went to the deck where her crew quarters were located. She freshened up. She spent a few minutes crying into a towel for Jude. Then she pulled herself together and walked back toward her bunk—only to pause as she saw another junior officer in the corridor heading to the auxiliary bridge. “Nash?”
Nash Windrider nodded. He still moved slowly, a bit like a man sleepwalking, but his uniform was regulation neat and his voice calm. “All hands are needed.”
“You’re sure you’re ready?”
“I have to be,” he said simply.
She put one hand on his arm. “Are you positive? You’ve been through a lot.” How inadequate. His entire planet had been destroyed in the hopes that it would end a war, and those hopes had proved futile. Nash had to be profoundly devastated.
His voice low, he said, “The Empire is all I have left. I need to be of use. I want to serve.”
Ciena still wondered whether Nash could handle it, but she decided to stop fighting him. He deserved the chance to try. “Okay. I’ll walk you up there.”
Nash nodded, his silence perhaps a tacit acknowledgment that he remained on the emotional brink.
She noticed then that he’d cut his hair; the long braids he’d worn tied at the nape of his neck throughout his academy years had been shorn completely. Maybe the braids had carried meaning on Alderaan, or maybe the change was symbolic for Nash—something he’d done as a kind of farewell. Regardless, Ciena knew better than to ask.
The corridors of the Devastator were eerily silent; only a few courier droids and a handful of guards walked along the metal-mesh floors. Without the usual bustle of activity, the few sounds remaining were amplified to strange effect: the echoing of their footsteps, even the faint hiss of the ship’s ventilation system. Despite her misery and fury, she realized that deep within her was a small sense of—reassurance.
The Death Star will never destroy another world.
She would always mourn Jude and the others who had died aboard the Death Star, would always recognize its explosion as the act of terrorism it was. Yet Ciena took some comfort from the fact that no other planet would suffer Alderaan’s fate. Its destruction had been the Emperor’s last-ditch effort to end a bloody war before it began; that effort had failed. War had come. The devastation to follow would no doubt be terrible; Ciena expected to see constant combat and war readiness for a long time to come. She would have to kill and risk being killed.
But that was war. The combatants would be soldiers prepared for battle. That Ciena could accept.
Shortly before they reached the auxiliary bridge, Nash said, “Ciena?”
“Do you need out of this duty shift?” Exhausted though Ciena was, she would volunteer to work the next few hours in Nash’s stead if it would help.
“No. It’s just—before I left my cabin, I was thinking of Thane. I wanted to talk with him. So I searched for information about the Dantooine transport.” Nash hesitated before finishing. “They’d received orders to return to the Death Star.”
The blood in her veins froze. Ciena stood stock-still in the corridor, unable to take another step. She swallowed hard. “And Thane?”
“He would’ve been aboard. Do you know if the transport docked before the explosion?”
“No.”
All that time, Ciena had kept going by promising herself that she’d be able to talk about everything with Thane soon—by reminding herself that at least her best friend in the world had escaped.
But what if he hadn’t? What if Thane had been killed, too?
It took almost a week—the longest and most agonizing of his life—for Thane’s ship to receive new, definite orders. His vessel, a short-haul transport, hadn’t been stocked with nearly enough provisions, so they’d had to commandeer foodstuffs from the nearest town. Although the ship had bunks, they were intended more for emergency use by the injured than for actual sleep. Rather than lie on those, Thane and several others had moved into the bunks the rebels left behind.
How strange it felt to lie on the enemy’s bed, to see where someone had drawn a crude figure of an X-wing fighter on the wall, and to know an X-wing like that had been the weapon that destroyed the Death Star—and maybe Ciena with it.
So Thane should have been relieved to be back aboard his own ship, fully armored and with his blaster at his side. Nothing was worse than not knowing, he’d told himself. Once they’d rendezvoused with the Imperial fleet, he would finally find out for certain what had happened to all his friends.
But when he tried to imagine what he’d do if they told him Ciena was dead, his mind went blank. It was as if his brain refused to show him anything beyond that point.
“Kyrell,” his commander said as they prepared for lightspeed. “Did you not send family messages confirming your survival? I show you as a yes, but we’ve got no responses.”
“You wouldn’t,” Thane said, without much emotion. He didn’t think his family actually wanted him dead—though maybe Dalven wouldn’t have minded—but writing back was apparently beyond their interests.
What did I ever do to them, besides being born? he thought for the thousandth time.
Yet thinking of that made him want to talk to Ciena, the only person who’d ever really understood how screwed up his family was. The pit of fear in his belly grew heavier, and he spoke hardly one word on their way to rendezvous with the fleet.
When the transport came out of lightspeed, a few people muttered and one person emitted a low whistle of surprise. Outside hovered more ships than Thane had ever seen in one place, even over Coruscant. TIE fighters swarmed like gnats scurrying over the surface of every larger vessel. Countless transports and smaller ships had been pulled into rough formation around the dozen or so Star Destroyers that obviously formed the new core of the Imperial Starfleet.
Was one of those Star Destroyers the Devastator? From the outside the ships were as identical as slices of the same pie.
Even as their transport rose into the main docking bay, their commander was shouting their new orders. “N-O-Seven-One-Eight, you’re to report to the Star Destroyer Eliminator immediately, to Lieutenant Commander Cherik. N-Y-One-One-Two, same orders. A-V-Five-Four-Seven—”
Thane lifted his head.
“You transfer to the troop ship Watchtower for transport and deployment to Kerev Doi.”
He was being sent to a spice-mining world? The order sounded absurd to Thane for the instant it took him to put the pieces together. Wherever spice was a commodity, finances became shady. If you wanted to hide money—vast sums of it, the kind of funds that could support an entire rebel army—Kerev Doi was one of the very few places in the galaxy to which you could turn. They were being sent to shake the place down, maybe to cut the Rebellion off at the source. That made sense. Yet he found himself thinking of Kerev Doi in a very different light. Spice worlds were heavily trafficked by ships both legitimate and criminal. Even many of the legitimate vessels didn’t keep careful records about their trips there. Every storybook or holo about running away from home featured one of the spice worlds and colorful images of the exotic ships and traders who might whisk anyone away from the life they had known before.
Kerev Doi was a place where he could get lost.
Thane caught himself. It wasn’t like he was actually planning on leaving the Imperial fleet, at least not yet. Not until he’d learned what had become of Ciena, Nash, and the rest, and maybe not ever. But he was perhaps…testing the idea. Getting used to it.
If Ciena had died, what was left for him there? Nothing.
“Sir?” he said to his commanding officer, who looked annoyed at the interruption. “Which Star Destroyer is this?”
“Does it matter, Lieutenant Kyrell?”
“It does to me, sir.”
His commanding officer wasn’t impressed by any show of independence. “You’re on the Devastator. But if you’re not on the Watchtower within the hour, you’re
out of the fleet.”
The Devastator. Thane breathed out. Okay, Ciena’s probably fine. She was safe and sound on her ship the entire time.
Unless maybe she stayed behind on the Death Star for a duty assignment—or she was visiting Jude and the Devastator pulled out too quickly for her to rejoin it—
He disembarked with only a wrist communicator to tell him where to find the Watchtower’s docking berth. From the looks of things, he didn’t have much time, but maybe enough to stop at a communications panel. Even if the system informed him she was on duty, it would be proof she was alive. How was he supposed to get on another ship and fly away from the Devastator without even knowing?
“Thane!”
He turned and saw Ciena, halfway across the crowded bay, and it was like the hard shell around him cracked and crumbled away. He forgot about Kerev Doi, about escape. It was impossible to think about anything but the sight of her there, then, alive. “Ciena!”
Then all that mattered was pushing through the crowd, shouldering aside stormtrooper grunts and senior officers alike, so he could get to her.
Ciena flung her arms around Thane’s neck, and he embraced her back so tightly that she could barely breathe. She didn’t care, not now.
“You’re alive,” she said, her voice breaking. “You’re alive. We didn’t know whether your transport had returned to the Death Star—”
“I didn’t know if the Devastator made it, and nobody knows what the hell is going on—”
“It’s so terrible—”
“Did you—?”
They stopped trying to talk over each other and just laughed for a moment, out of pure joy. Ciena looked up at Thane, and she saw the man he had become, the one she was in some ways only beginning to know—and yet who was already as much a part of her as her bone or blood.
“I’m supposed to report to the Watchtower within the hour,” Thane said. “Are you free?”
She could’ve groaned. Already she was late to report for her next shift—but then, to the side, she saw Berisse gesturing at her, clearly saying, Go on! I’ve got it! Ciena turned back to Thane. “I have a few minutes.”
They worked their way through the busy docking bay to a side corridor; it led to a recreation area and, as such, was currently deserted. Though the roar of activity continued only a few meters away, there the two of them could be nearly alone.
“Are you all right?” Thane brushed a loose curl back from her cheek as he framed her face with his hands.
Ciena knew he wasn’t talking about battle injuries. “Nash Windrider is safe. He’s torn up about Alderaan—” It was hard even to say the planet’s name. Thane winced when he heard it. “Still, he’s on duty. But Jude died on the Death Star.”
“I’m sorry.” He pulled her back into his arms, and she leaned her head against his chest.
They’d never touched each other like that; no doubt Thane was as vividly aware of that as she was. And yet embracing him, being held by him, felt natural. Right.
“I really thought I’d lost you,” she whispered. “Everything else I could handle, because I had to, but when I realized you might have been killed—I knew I couldn’t get through that. Not ever.”
Ciena expected him to say something like, “Of course you could; you’re strong” or “Don’t worry about me.” Instead, Thane folded her deeper in his embrace. “This whole week, I didn’t know if you were dead or alive. The Empire has been turned upside down, and we’re going to war, and not one damn bit of it mattered. You were the only one I could think about.”
Ciena stood on tiptoe to hug him tighter. Thane’s fingers traced along her jawline as he brushed his lips against her forehead, then tilted her face up toward his. But it was Ciena who brought their mouths together for their first kiss.
Oh, she thought as their lips opened against each other. It’s not whether he’s my friend or someone I love. He’s both. Thane’s always been both, since the beginning.
This wasn’t the start of something; it was their discovery, their admission, of what had been between them for a very long while.
When they pulled apart, Thane took a deep breath. “That was—very—”
“Yeah.” Then they both laughed, more gently this time, and he kissed her forehead again.
She slid her arms down his shoulders to take his hands in hers. Thane’s crooked smile made Ciena feel as if she were melting inside. Why couldn’t this have happened at a moment when they could really be alone?
But a few stolen minutes in a noisy docking bay were all they had, and she didn’t intend to waste them. “Listen to me,” Ciena said. “As crazy as things are, we’ll be together again. I don’t know where or when, but it’s going to happen.”
“It will,” he answered, brightening. “No matter what, I’m going to find you.”
That was a strange way to put it. Once they worked past this initial confusion, Imperial records would be able to connect the two of them at any time. But Ciena didn’t care. She was too overcome, already yearning for the next time they’d be together before they’d even said good-bye. “How can I miss you when you’re still here?”
“Because I already miss you, too. But it’s not forever. Not even for long.”
Thane kissed her again, and after days of holding strong against loss, grief, and terror, Ciena let herself surrender to a moment of happiness.
Then she walked him to his transport, kissed him once more at the ramp as a few officers inside whistled, and, finally, ran like hell for her duty station.
When she got to her console, Berisse stepped aside with a motion like a waiter presenting the dessert. “I owe you one,” Ciena breathed as she tried to steady herself.
“You owe me way more than one,” Berisse answered.
Ciena glanced sideways at Berisse; the two of them started to smile at the craziness of it all. Amazing how, in situations like that, you could become good friends in only a couple of days. She got back to work, but on one viewscreen she brought up the docking bay feed so she could see the Watchtower disengage and set off for the infinity of space, taking Thane with it.
IN THE ADVENTURE stories and swashbuckling holo-series Thane had watched as a child, spice worlds were exotic lands peopled with beautiful dancers, wisecracking gangsters, and daring pilots who flew souped-up starships as they outran those no-good Old Republic enforcers.
The stories all suggested that spice smugglers longed for a day when they could trade their goods fairly—and that the Empire had delivered the spice worlds from their more dangerous, yet colorful past. Thane no longer believed in the Empire as anyone’s salvation, and he knew he’d learned all that from tales told to children; yet the romance of spice worlds lingered until the moment he set foot on Kerev Doi.
He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t this.
Kerev Doi’s pink skies no longer spread over vast open land; instead they had turned darker and hung over a grim, disheartened populace. People didn’t wear fancy outfits or trade quips; they hid within heavy cloaks and said as little as possible. Spice farms dominated the landscape. Everything about the planet that wasn’t ordinary was profoundly depressing.
Okay, so your childhood stories didn’t pan out, Thane told himself roughly. Get over it. This is reality.
His duty would have been easier if he’d had more to do on Kerev Doi, but the Watchtower’s role was primarily to ferry the officials in charge of shaking down the planet’s notoriously corrupt banking system and to provide a show of strength. So Thane’s tasks were limited to taking out his TIE fighter every day and flying low over areas that needed a reminder of the Empire’s power and reach.
Once, Thane might at least have found it funny, the way people cowered and scattered as he flew overhead. After Alderaan, seeing people scared of the Empire—well, he no longer felt like laughing.
On a free night, he went out to the Blue Convor, a local nightclub famous from many of the holos. That was where heroes and heroines met each other, exc
hanged soulful glances over drinks that glowed in the radiant light, and made plans that would earn them money beyond imagining. Thane held out little hope for the place; at worst it would be as seedy and run-down as most of what he’d seen of Kerev Doi so far. At best it would be a tourist trap.
But somehow the Blue Convor turned out to be relatively close to what Thane had pictured. The ambiance was low-key (helped along by the new rule that only Imperial officers could bring their blasters inside). Low couches were cushioned in deep orange and rich pink, and hanging plants dangled their lush blooms overhead. Levitating candle droids illuminated only their immediate surroundings, leaving plenty of inviting shadows. The music was excellent, low sultry rhythms played by a long-snouted guy at a circular keyboard. Thane’s drink came in a tall glass and was just strong enough to soften the edges.
I’ll tell Ciena about this in my next message, he thought. She used to like those holos, too, when she got to see them. It would make her happy to know at least one thing about Kerev Doi is just as good as we imagined it.
Thane felt himself grinning and tried to stop, but he couldn’t. Even the thought of Ciena blew his mind these days.
Ever since that day on the Sky Loop when Thane had first realized the new potential in his relationship with Ciena, he’d resisted it. Even when he hadn’t been angry with her about that dumb-ass incident with the laser cannon, he’d been afraid of what would happen if the bond between them changed.
But it hadn’t changed. That was the amazing thing. They’d always belonged to each other in ways that were difficult to define; Thane felt as though they’d simply acknowledged what had been true from the start.
And she, too, was considering leaving the Imperial Starfleet.
That made sense, of course. Ciena defined herself by her honor, and there could be no honor in what the Empire had done to Alderaan. Obviously, the Rebel Alliance was no better; it had blown up the Death Star with nearly two million people on board. But one wrong didn’t excuse another. She had probably thought about abandoning her post even before he had.
